Metamorphosis
by Iris Musicia
Summary: AU:  A half-demon raised his whole life like an animal to do nothing but fight to the death is rescued by a kind-hearted woman and taught how sweet life can be.  Kurtty.
1. Hallo

**This is an AU fic with mature content. Contains illegal fighting, child cruelty, violence, abuse, coarse language and possibly sexual innuendo. Read at your own risk, no flames accepted. Thank you and enjoy.**

He was confused. A drugged haze kept his mind dull, and vaguely, in a very disconnected way, he felt someone strap something to his wrists before the drugs pulled his under again. He didn't even feel the needle pierce his skin.

When he awoke, the scene was unfamiliar. Instead of seeing his mother close by, he was all alone in a circular area with pads on the high walls. Across the circular area, the ring, a dummy stood, painted features glaring in a provoking way. A sudden anger gripped his body, and he lunged at the dummy, which towered over him, but he beat at its midsection viciously with his fists, elbows and knees, then got several good bites in to its arms and succeeded in ripping stuffing out. In an all-out attempt to kill the dummy, he leaped onto it and bit for its throat, but all of a sudden, there was a _thunk_ and pain hit him in the back. Moments later, the world had gone black.

Consciousness returned to his dazed mind, but he didn't open his eyes, for fear that he might see another dummy, and his body ached all over. Eventually, though, he did open his eyes, and what he saw made his sorely wish he was back with his mother. He was in a wire cage on what appeared to be a shelf, but the walls on three sides were blocked with plywood. He could smell others behind the plywood, in different tones, some in confusion and fear, like himself, others in a drug-induced stupor, others in anger, and a few in contentment.

_Wer bin ich?_ He wondered, then looked down at his wrists. Two cable ties had been strapped on to each wrist, not very tightly, but not loose enough he could get them off. Each cable tie had a ring on it, and the loose straps, curving like spurs on the outside of his wrists, had been sharpened just enough to cause a prick of pain if he accidently touched them.

Taking inventory of himself, he realized he was fully naked, except for the cable ties on his wrists, a collar around his neck, four cable ties on his ankles, a cable tie similar to the wrist tie on his tail, and a belt draped loosely over his slender hips. Tears welled up in his eyes at the unfamiliarity of the situation. It wasn't as if having no clothes perturbed him, it was the fact he was collared and constrained like a dog, and at seven years old, barely knew what was going on.

He didn't start crying in earnest until he realized multiple braided chains snapped onto one of the many loops of his belt and collar held him within a foot of the back wall of the wire cage—which, while roomy now, was barely big enough to fit a sixteen-year-old. This cage was to be his home for the rest of his useful life.

A man came down the row of cages, looking in at each resident. He stopped at his cage and looked in at him for a few long moments before shouting to another person on the other side of his cage to loosen his chains. He could tell he wasn't a half-demon—he talked too loud and smelled funny and didn't look anything like his momma. There was a sudden release of pressure on his neck and abdomen as the chains were let out. The man nodded and moved on, down the cages, banging against the bars as one half-demon farther down began to scream at an unnatural pitch. He analyzed the scent of the Screamer. Fear and drugs.

Nervously, he took the points of his wrist spurs and bit on them, grinding his teeth against the plastic. Chewing on something had always made him feel better, and his teeth hurt especially badly right now because he was losing one and the dummy had been made of some pretty hard material. Pressing his finger cautiously to one top canine, then the other, he could feel the difference between permanent tooth and baby tooth; and it was the baby tooth that was hurting. Experimentally, he pushed on it with his tongue, squealing in pain. The scent to his left changed, and suddenly he could tell that the half-demon to his left was older and female, and felt . . . concerned for him.

"_Wer bin ich?_" he asked through the plywood, an involuntary sob entering his voice. "_Wer ist meine Mutter? Warum habe ich Ketten? Warum ich? Ich will meine Mutter! Werde ich hier f__ü__r immer sein?"_

There was the sound of somebody fidgeting in a small space on the other side, then in a voice rough from disuse, the half-demon replied.

"_Es tut mir leid, aber ja, dieses ist dein Leben jetzt, voll mit Schmerz, f__ü__r immer."_ It was the cold, hard, bleak truth. He sniffled and bit harder on his cable ties, then tears started to leak.

"_Was ist sein Name?" _he asked timidly.

"_Ich habe hier geblieben so lange ich habe keine."_

"_Oh. Darf ich Sie 'Key' hie__β__en?" _he asked quietly. There was a moment of silence.

"_Ja,"_

"_Ich f__ü__hle mich besser jetzt ich eine Freundin habe. . . . danke."_

"_Bitte—aber wir m__ü__ssen moment leise sein; ein Mann kommt."_

Key fell silent as another, different man walked down the row. The man threw something in Key's cage, then stepped forward and threw something in his cage too. He crept forward and picked it up cautiously, turning it over in his hands.

"_Was ist das?" _he asked to Key.

"_Futter. Ess das, oder du bekommst kein Futter mehr und dann bist du hungrig."_ Key replied, sounding like her mouth was full. Hesitantly, he put the cold, hard thing to his mouth and bit his two permanent canines into it. His teeth sank in surprisingly easily, and he bit off a little chunk, juggling the coldness around in his mouth with his tongue. He thought about complaining about the temperature, but didn't once it warmed up and he understood he was eating meat. Glorious food, meat, had never tasted so good and instantly he realized he was almost starving.

A few minutes later, when he had devoured the meat and was hungering for more, Key spoke.

"_Ich habe vergessen zum fragen – was ist dein Name?"_

"'_ch habe keine . . . aber meine Mutter hat mir einige Kurt gehei__β__t . . . sie hat gesagt es war ihren Vaters Name oder etwas . . ." _he said, curling up into a ball as far into the corner as the chains would allow, wishing for the warmth of his mother's body.

"_Darf ich dir Kurt hei__β__en?" _Key asked softly. He nodded his head, then realized Key couldn't see it, then said,

"_Ja."_

A comfortable silence fell between the two. Kurt rested his head against the plywood that separated him from Key. Eventually, he spoke again.

"_Key?"_

"_Ja?"_

"_K__önnen Sie meine Mutter sein?"_

"_Jawohl, Kurt, ich werde dich __besch__ü__tzen.__"_ Key said gently, and she managed to fit her tail barb through a gap in the plywood. Kurt held her barb tenderly to his cheek, straining fully against his chains to be as close to the plywood, as close to his new mother as possible, and fell asleep.

**Translations:**

_**Wer bin ich?**_** – Where am I?**

_**Wer ist meine Mutter? – **_**Where is my mother?**

_**Warum habe ich Ketten? – **_**Why do I have [these] chains [on my body]?**

_**Warum ich? – **_**Why me?**

_**Ich will meine Mutter! – **_**I want my mother!**

_**Werde ich hier f**__**ü**__**r immer sein? –**_** Will I be here forever?**

_**Es tut mir leid, aber ja, dieses ist dein Leben jetzt, voll mit Schmerz, f**__**ü**__**r immer – **_**I'm sorry, but yes, this is your life now, filled with pain, forever.**

_**Was ist sein Name? – **_**What is your name?**

_**Ich habe hier geblieben so lange ich habe keine –**_** I've been here so long I don't have one**

_**Oh. Darf ich Sie 'Key' hie**__**β**__**en?**_** – Oh. May I call you 'Key'?**

_**Ja –**_** Yes**

_**Ich f**__**ü**__**hle mich besser jetzt ich eine Freundin habe. . . . danke –**_** I feel better now that I have a friend . . . thank you**

_**Bitte—aber wir m**__**ü**__**ssen moment leise sein; ein Mann kommt – **_**You're welcome—but we have to be quiet for a moment; somebody's coming**

_**Was ist das? –**_** What is this?**

_**Futter. Ess das, oder du bekommst kein Futter mehr und dann bist du hungrig –**_** Food (contextual note: for animals). Eat it, or you won't get any more and then you'll be hungry**

_**Ich habe vergessen zum fragen – was ist dein Name? –**_** I forgot to ask – what's your name?**

'_**ch habe keine . . . aber meine Mutter hat mir einige Kurt gehei**__**β**__**t . . . sie hat gesagt es war ihren Vaters Name oder etwas . . . –**_** I don't have one . . . but my mother called me Kurt a few times . . . she said it was her father's name or something . . .**

_**Darf ich dir Kurt hei**__**β**__**en? –**_** May I call you Kurt?**

_**K**__**önnen Sie meine Mutter sein? – **_**Can you be my [new] mother?**

_**Jawohl, Kurt, ich werde dich **__**besch**__**ü**__**tzen – **_**Of course, Kurt, I'll protect you.**

**Also, I'd like to thank FrankandJoe3 for her major help with this, turning it from a writing doodle to a Fanfiction, and a lot of other stuff. :D**


	2. Bist du da?

**Disclaimer: Marvel rightfully owns the X-Men, sadly I don't . . . and in case any Marvel official is reading this . . . uh, well, I don't get any monetary value from this work of fiction . . . yanno, more disclaimerish stuff . . .**

**A/N: Sorry about the first chapter, I didn't make it clear that any and all translations will be at the bottom—I do the translations in the same order as the conversation, so when you get to the conversation, you can just scroll to the bottom and read, then scroll up again if you want. If that doesn't work for y'all, drop me a line and I'll put the translations next to the spoken words, 'k?**

**A/N2: Graphic violence in this chapter . . . not for the faint of heart- and FJ3, before you say "it's no big deal", think about this in your head. Picture it. Imagine going through it. Not such a small deal now, eh?**

**A/N3: My sister just told me- ten minutes after I posted it- that I should put the translations next to the words. So I will. Now.  
**

When Kurt awoke the next morning, he couldn't sense Key next to him, and that scared him.

"_Key!"_ he cried, scrabbling at the plywood. Immediately, scents of pity, fear, and anger spiked in the half-demons all around him. "_Key!"_ he cried again.

Sharp, loud footsteps banged down the row and an angry man's face appeared in the entrance to Kurt's cage.

"_Leise sein, tier!_"_**Be quiet, animal!**_ he shouted, pounding his fist against the cage and scaring Kurt into a shocked silence.

The young half-demon got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as the man walked away and the stench of blood entered the air and there was a heavy shuffling sound, then a dangerous warning growl and the _snap_ of jaws closing on empty air. The dull thud of a heavy object against flesh and a low moan of pain followed.

The door to Key's cage rattled, and Kurt could just barely see a person—a half-demon—climbing a stepstool up into the cage.

"_Key, bist du da?_" _**Key, are you there? **_Kurt murmured to the plywood.

"_Naturlich, Kurt . . ."_ Key moaned, and Kurt heard the sound of her head thumping against the plywood. __"_mir tut mich weh_." _**Of course, Kurt . . . I'm not well [though]**_

"_Ist was mit dir?"__**What's the matter?**_ Kurt asked, concerned.

"_Ein Kampf,"__**A fight**_ Key said flatly.

"_Ein Kampf? Werdest du . . . wohl sein?____" __**A fight? Are you . . . well?**_

"_Ja, Kurt, spaeter. Ich tode nicht.____"__**Yes, Kurt, later [I will be]. I won't die.**_

Kurt sighed with relief and reached through the gap in the plywood. Instead of feeling Key's soft fur, he felt hot, wet, sick flesh. Kurt squealed and tried to pull his hand back, but the plywood was in the way and he sliced his thumb, breaking a corner of the plywood.

"_Was war das?"_ _**What was that? **_Kurt demanded, rubbing his thumb, but the pain got worse.

"_Was ein Kampf gebt Mann—Wunden. Leck dein Finger an." __**What a fight gives you—wounds. Lick your finger. **_Key commanded, and Kurt did so, feeling relief from the cut.

"_Leckst du dich an?_"_**Are you licking?**_ Kurt asked.

"_Ja____."__**Yes.**_

"_Fuehlst du dich wohl jetzt?" __**Do you feel better yet? **_Kurt asked, hopeful, between licks.

Key chuckled. _"Meine Wunden sind schlechter als dein.____"__**My wounds are worse than yours.**_

"_Bitte besser sein, Key,_"_**Please get better soon, Key**_ Kurt said, and Key chuckled again.

xXx

Two days later, a man came and opened Kurt's cage, stuck a pole in, and hooked one of the metal rings on Kurt's collar as the chains were detached from his belt. He pulled the collar forward and Kurt gave a cry of fear, but had no choice but to follow.

Kurt was pulled forward and out of the cage and fell roughly onto the ground, yelping again. The man bent down and put a leather mask over Kurt's mouth, then tied the cable ties on his wrists together behind his back, and his tail was tied to his left ankle, then another two poles were attached to the loops on his belt on his hips.

It all happened so fast, Kurt had no time to react. He tried to struggle, but without the balance of his tail or arms, was completely unable to. Three poles held by three men restrained him, and fearfully he looked to Key, up in her cage, for guidance.

Key looked to be five or six years older than Kurt, and was covered with slashes and puncture wounds, also scars on her arms etched into her fur. She saw the fear in his eyes and nodded her head, sweeping back the long dark curtain of indigo hair with a cable-tied wrist, sadness evident in her gold gaze.

Kurt stumbled along as the men led him down a row of cages of half-demons, stacked three high, six feet tall, and the row seemed to go on forever. Each half-demon was either scarred and fight-worn, as Key was, or young and scared as Kurt was. He looked back quickly and saw several other young half-demons being taken out of their cages before one of the men holding a hip pole smacked his face, bringing tears to his eyes and making him trip, the motion of the step on his left leg impeded by the tail tied to it.

He fell face-first into the dusty cement floor of the warehouse, turning his head just in time to avoid breaking his nose. The man holding the collar pole jerked his head up, a warning to stand or be dragged.

One thing Kurt knew: learn fast or be beaten.

He scrambled upright and tottered along as a young female half-demon ahead was pulled out of her cage. Kurt was forced to stop and wait for the other half-demon's party to move on, and as they pulled her out and started to gag and restrain her, she kicked out like a horse, her foot connecting with one of the men's groin. He cursed and threw her to the ground, proceeding to kick her viciously until she bled.

They pulled her roughly to her feet again, and though she hadn't made a noise through the beating, her ears were back against her head in pain and defeat and her eyes were filled with agony. As Kurt passed, he gave her a sympathetic look, but she averted her beaten gaze.

The men led Kurt down a series of hallways, some cold and dark, others hot and dark, one had a few skylights that cast an odd, grey, rainy light on the concrete passage. Finally, Kurt heard movements up ahead, behind heavy doors, he could hear the echoes and knew it was a large room.

The door was pushed open and Kurt, along with the beaten girl and a few other young half-demons, were led in. There was a congregation of some fifty young half-demons, all about six or seven years old; all from Kurt's generation.

The men were talking amongst themselves as they held the poles restraining their young, frightened charges; Kurt could understand a few snatches of speech, and from what he gathered, they were going to fight the demons amongst themselves.

A few minutes later, the half-demons had been lined up in a neat row around the outside of the circular room, and four men came down the line with needles and bottles and injected something into each half-demon's arm in turn. A few tried to flinch away from the needles, but were slapped and forced down and injected. Kurt flinched as the needle pierced him, and got a slap for that, but after the fourth injection, he didn't blink.

The half-demons were then turned around and all the cable ties removed, limbs still bound, and replaced with heavy cuffs with sharp steel spurs on them, then another about-face **[1]**, muzzle removed, jaws forced open, and sharpened, hard enamel caps fitted on the canine teeth. The muzzles weren't replaced, but if any demon made a noise, it was hit.

They were all led down to a sunken, sandy arena, half the size of the room, with very high walls polished slick. There was also a thick mirror curving over the top, forming a dome that was actually a two-way mirror, allowing the fighting demons inside to only see their reflections whereas the human spectators would see the fighting demons.

Ten demons were forced inside, door closed, limbs unrestrained, and one man wearing a Kevlar suit. He quickly shocked each demon (in a horrible place) and dashed out the door.

Now the demons, Kurt not included, were angry, filled with injected testosterone, and in pain. Quickly, they rounded on each other and started fighting, though one quickly discovered the best way to injure an opponent was to use the spurs on their limbs.

The rest of the half-demons were forced to watch as their fellow demons were beaten, slashed, and injured by possible kennel mates. Kurt looked on, horrified by the morbid spectacle, so much so he couldn't tear his eyes away, as several bigger male demons rounded on the female that Kurt had seen get beaten.

They converged on her, and though the glass was thick, it couldn't block out the horrible screeches. They mauled her, and when they disbanded, the sand was bloodstained and the female unrecognizably mangled—and dead.

The males fought each other until one—bloodied within an inch of death, won out by stabbing his opponent in the neck with his tail spur—emerged victorious. Five men came out and rebound his limbs, removed the tooth caps and spurs, and led him out with poles attached to his collar and belt.

Kurt was terrified. The men started to take him and nine other demons down to the entrance to the pit, and he struggled as hard as he could, leaping and twisting, but the men just laughed—and surprisingly did not beat him: they wanted his blood up for the fight.

They let them out in the pit, the stench of anger and blood and fear in their nostrils, and dragged out nine dead bodies, then shocked the demons in places nobody should be shocked.

Angered, Kurt bared his teeth and snarled a warning at the smaller male to his right. He must have been only six. Across the ring, a burly female howled, dropped to all fours, and bounded across the arena to Kurt. He leaped at her, and the two met in midair, the female's superior momentum bowling Kurt over.

They landed on the bloodied sand, the female's jaws at Kurt's throat, but his spurs at her spine. He stabbed down with his wrists and the female let out a screech of pain and rage, then went stiff. Kurt rolled over on her and savaged her throat. Crawling off her body, his instincts overpowered him and he crawled up onto the slick wall, sticking for a moment before half falling half leaping onto another bigger male.

He could hear victorious shouts from the men above as he snapped the male's arm and viciously twisted his tail, earning a scream of pain. The pain was just enough to push the male over the edge, and he bit Kurt's shoulder so powerfully Kurt's whole right arm went numb.

Another female leaped onto Kurt's back and bit the back of his head, her spurs digging into his arms, hips and thigh. He twisted his head around, snarling defiance, and violently twisted himself back over on her, hearing another shout from the men, and screeched as he felt hot blood flow from where her spurs had stabbed him.

The female, in her throes to get Kurt off, hacked at him with her spurs, but Kurt, pinned down by the male whose arm he had snapped, could not run anywhere to escape.

His mind panicked, then his instincts quelled his mind and _bamf_! He felt like he was being squeezed through a tight, tight hot tube, and another _bamf_ and he fell onto the sand, across the arena from the two he had just been fighting, landing flat on his back on a corpse of a half-demon smaller than he.

The male fell onto the female, and the men wolf-whistled and catcalled, but he bit her throat out and leaped up, turning to Kurt, his arm and tail dangling uselessly. Kurt stood and bared his teeth.

There was another _bamf_ and the male appeared again in front of Kurt, lashing out with his good arm. The spur sliced Kurt's chest, from collarbone to hip. He staggered back, fell down onto the corpse again, and as the male advanced, Kurt kicked out with his feet.

The male froze in the middle of a snarl and fell onto Kurt, who realized he had stabbed him in the gut with his ankle spurs.

Kurt kicked the dying half-demon off him and leaped up, galloping around the arena crazily to the corpses, sniffing, clawing with spurs, and biting with teeth, teleporting when he became truly psychotic.

The door opened and Kurt wheeled around to the sound as a dart hit him in the ribs. He caterwauled and yanked it out, throwing it back at the Kevlar man, who dodged, and advanced with a pole.

The man caught Kurt's collar with the pole as the dart's contents began to take effect. The dart had estrogen in it, countering the testosterone quickly **[2]**, and also a drug that nullified Kurt's teleportation. More men—seven in total—hooked all the loops on Kurt's belt and collar, they removed his spurs and caps, bound and muzzled him, and led him out into a cool, dark room.

Another needle pierced his arm, but Kurt didn't care, and soon he was limp and weak, but all his pain gone. The poles were removed and he was lifted up into one man's arms.

Kurt's vision blurred and his eyelids drooped. He could still hear and smell, though his right ear had been cut and the bridge of his nose also slashed. He sensed the cage room, and he opened his weak eyes long enough to see Key, horrified, eyes wide, up against the front of her cage, screeching Kurt's name.

The man gently put Kurt in his cage, tied the chains loosely, and put something in the corner. Key wiggled her tail barb through the now-wider opening in the plywood. Kurt grasped it faintly and he heard Key murmur something before unconsciousness claimed him.

**Yes, graphic . . . depressed due to Animal Cops, and just watched a 9/11 video and am feeling . . . depressed and on the verge of tears and patriotic . . . *sniffle***

**[1]: an about-face is a 180 degree turn; aka turning around**

**[2]: I know estrogen wouldn't do that, but for the sake of the fanfiction, it has to!**


	3. Hilfe kommt

**Disclaimer: Marvel's too wussy to write kick-butt stuff like this!**

**A/N: This story's on FIYYAH! Thank you all to who have favved, subscribed, and above all, REVIEWED!**

When Kurt finally emerged from unconsciousness, he crawled over to the thing in the corner of his cage that he had been nibbling on through his "nap."

"_Ugh, Key, wie lang hab' ich schlafen bin?_" **How long have I been sleeping?** Kurt groaned, reaching through the plywood and feeling Key's fur.

"_Velleicht drei oder vier Tagen_," **About three or four days,** Key answered, shifting so she gripped Kurt's hand with her own.

"_Oh Gott, ich glaube ich war in eine Kampf,_" **Oh God, I think I was in a fight**, Kurt moaned, taking inventory of his body and licking the sores on his wrists from the spurs.

"_Es werde besser sein."_ **It'll get better. **Key reassured him.

XXX

_**Two months later**_

It was a dark night, darker than normal because of a new moon and a thick cloud cover. Surprisingly though, many people were strolling the streets. They walked down Delfin Platz, the wide, beautiful street with all the nice shops, ignoring the warehouse at the corner of Delfin and Ernst-Schwendler. A few years before, a street artist had painted an expansive mural stretching down two sides of the warehouse, of rolling fields and woods with big-eyed does and sleek bobcats hiding in the trees. It wasn't dilapidated, but it wasn't bustling either, so nobody gave a second thought to the warehouse.

However, on this dark night as people enjoyed an evening walk, the streetlamp by the warehouse went out, plunging the mural and the person under it into darkness. He stood, looking up at the faintly glowing wick of the bulb and wondered why it had gone out.

Then he heard distant screeching from the warehouse behind him.

"_Was ist los?_" **What's up?** He muttered to himself, going around the corner to look for an entrance to the warehouse. He was a German animal cop, and if there were animals fighting the way the screeching indicated, he should check it out.

He found bingo when he had walked to the end of the mural on Ernst-Schwendler. A tall, wrought-iron gate barred the alley in between the warehouse and the neighboring building. Pushing on it experimentally, he found it unlocked. He pulled his gun and held it muzzle-down, with the safety on. The man crept around the side of the warehouse and found an entrance into the warehouse, a steel door, padlocked, but a sliver of yellow light shone underneath it, onto his shoes.

He kept his gun out, unclicked the safety, as he heard the stirring of many bodies on the other side of the door. The screeches and yowls, sounding vaguely feline, were more distant and muted here, but not unhearable. Raising a fist, he knocked on the door. He waited a moment, then heard somebody on the other side.

"_Wer sind Sie? Warum sind Sie hier?"_** Who are you? Why are you here?** A man asked from the other side of the door. Thinking fast, the animal cop decided to go undercover, get in, scope it out, report it, and get back undercover.

"_Ich bin hier für ein Job. Soll ich hier kommen für der Job?_" **I'm here for a job. Do I come here for the job? ** He asked, not putting his gun away.

The man on the other side of the door sighed. _"Wissen Sie, was dieser Job ist?_" **Do you know what this job is?**

"_Ja. Bitte, ich will ein Job. Ich habe mit Tiere bevor arbeiten—ich wisse Tieremedizin." _**Yes. Please, I want a job. I've worked with animals before—I know animal medicine. **The cop said, not lying completely, but leading the man on the other side of the door on.

There was a moment of silence. _"Okay. Warte ein Moment._" **Okay. Wait a minute. **

A minute or so later, a man approached the animal cop from the dark end of the alley, pistol in hand. _"Name?"_ he demanded.

"_Wengermann."_ The animal cop replied, using a familiar alias of his.

"_Gut. Komm mit._" **Good. C'mon.** The man said, keeping his pistol out, so Wengermann did the same.

The man led Wengermann into the warehouse, and the first thing he noticed was the overpowering stench of waste and sweat. It was heavy and cloying and made his eyes water. He coughed quietly, and the man looked back with a wicked smile, telling him he'd get used to it. They went past rows and rows of cages, filled with human-sized creatures: blue fur, three fingers, two toes, spaded tails, gold pupilless eyes, pointed ears and sharp yellowing fangs. The things Wengermann noticed the most were the shiny pale blue scars all over the creatures' bodies, marks from teeth and slashes from claws or something like that.

It horrified Wengermann to see the conditions of these almost-human creatures. He asked the man, who replied that these were half-demons, their fathers were humans and their mothers were demons. He walked up to one cage and hit the bars a few times with the butt of his gun. Wengermann came up and saw a young half-demon with its back towards them, healing scars on its back, eyes fierce but scared at the same time.

The man introduced himself as Bleichen, and said that this little demon was one of his sons. He was a good fighter—in his first go, he'd won and figured out how to use spurs and teleportation. Bleichen stuck his fingers through the bars, and the half-demon looked curiously towards them, but didn't make a move towards them. He growled, and from the cage next to him, an older, heavily scarred female growled.

"_Sprechen sie?"_ **Are they talking?** Wengermann asked.

"_Nein, sie sind zu dumm." _**No, they're too stupid. **Bleichen replied, chuckling slightly. Wengermann became distressed as he heard a slight whisper that Bleichen didn't.

" _. . . nicht nett . . ."_** . . . not nice . . . **the young half-demon murmured, then Wengermann realized the demons could not easily be understood because their voices were so feral and growling, but if you listened closely, you would hear.

Suddenly, Wengermann became aware of all the demons talking to each other. They must have picked up German from the men—most likely their fathers—and spoke it to each other. It appeared that the young demon in front of them had some sort of relation to the female next to him, because as Bleichen moved off, Wengermann dawdled and heard the demons start conversing.

"_Hey, es ist okay, ich bin mit die Tierepolizei. Meine Name ist Wengermann. Was ist sein?" _**Hey, it's okay, I'm with the animal cops. My name is Wengermann. What's yours? **Wengermann asked quickly. The half-demon looked surprised, but answered respectfully.

"_Ich heisse Kurt. Sie ist Key."_** I'm Kurt. She's Key. ** Kurt gestured to the female, Key. Wengermann nodded and left to follow Bleichen. As Wengermann left, Kurt felt hot tears prick his eyes. He started crying with happiness. They'd be rescued!

XXX

Bleichen led Wengermann into the office and had him fill out a confidentiality agreement, then let Wengermann go on the premise he had to collect his things and come back within two hours.

As soon as Wengermann was out in the alley, out of sight of Bleichen or whoever else may have been watching, he ran through the gate, walked back onto Delfin Platz, and hailed a taxi to take him to the animal cop precinct. He was going to save those half-demons and blow the operation out of the water.

XXX

**[From now on assume all talking is in German]**

"Sir, I must respectfully disagree! These beings can reason and speak like humans, and they are being fought against each other to the death, kept in cages like animals! I spoke to a young one, he said his name was Kurt! He has a sense of self, and it's highly immoral to keep people in cages. We have to save them. It's no different from any bird, dog, or horse fighting rings we've stopped." Wengermann protested to his supervisor.

"Look, Haupmacher, I can't do anything about this. You said so yourself that they reason like human beings. This is clearly a case for social services." His supervisor said, shaking his head sadly.

"Please, sir, let me go undercover and gather evidence. Then we can take the case to social services." Wengermann—or his real name, Haupmacher—offered a compromise. His supervisor sighed.

"Alright, Haupmacher. You're undercover as Wengermann, you said, so go get your camera and things. When do they expect you back?"

"In an hour and a half."

"Good. Take a laptop and start building a case that social services will be able to work with. Now go." The supervisor dismissed Wengermann, who leapt to his preparations.

XXX

"Key, do you think the animal cop, Wengermann, will come and save us?" Kurt asked.

"Yes, I suppose so, Kurt. Though, if he does get us out of here, where will we go? Have you thought about that?" Key countered.

"I'll go back to my real momma!" Kurt said.

"Kurt . . . your mother probably has another child by now, or another two perhaps. In here, they breed us like animals, because that's all we are to them. They don't know we can think and talk." Key said, trying for gentleness.

"Then I guess I'll stay with you, or Wengermann will find a place to let us live." Kurt said.

"For such a young boy, you think many years beyond your age." Key said, then fell silent.

"I just want to get out."

**I just have to break the chap here for extra dramatics and so the next chap is clean and makes sense. I've written a bunch, being stuck in a car for nine hours, and want to dedicate this chap to iNsOmNiAc-ReAdEr 2014 (sorry if I got the capitalization wrong): thank you for motivating me to get off my feet and write this, though I didn't finish it by the time you got back from Walmart. **

**Cheers and happy belated Thanksgiving from Iris Musicia**


	4. Freedom    gone

**Disclaimer: uh . . . um . . . I really do run out of good ways to say "no own!" in these things. Quite frustrating, really.**

**This chapter is dedicated to MissAbigail123. Hope you like it!**

_**Ten Years Later**_

A decade had only served to see the death of Wengermann during a violent bust of a dog-fighting ring, and the degradation of conditions in the warehouse where the half-demons lived. At Wengermann's death, the case had been dropped, for lack of evidence and charges, and because nobody else would take it on. It was low-priority, so the demons never received rescue.

Kurt had become angry, fearless, and a deadly fighter. Key was still around, and Kurt had been able to widen the plywood hole enough to fit his adult-sized hand through, but the cage was now so cramped, it was almost impossible to move. Looking back, Kurt appreciated how much Key had been able to move because of her smaller, feminine size.

Kurt was incredibly scarred from fights, but agile, flexible, and resilient as a whip. As he had continued winning fights, they gave him better food, and occasionally let him out into a big concrete room to stretch his legs alone. Being good fighters, Key and Kurt stuck around for a lot longer time than many other demons, and Key was now around twenty-seven, and Kurt at seventeen. Key was old for a fighter, but the men loved to see her jump into the ring, snarling without having to be shocked, and give them a good spectacle.

Whereas Key's nature had remained kind despite her fighting, Kurt's had become vicious, and just being taken out of his cage, he would lash out at any demon that was not Key out of habit and the way he had been raised.

Right now he was being let out into the concrete room, and he joyfully galloped around the huge room as many times as he could, then collapsed in the middle for a moment before leaping up and running laps on the walls, then the ceiling. He couldn't tire himself out too much, but he was so excited for what he was about to do: he had been planning it with Key for months; but it all hinged on Bleichen.

He teleported around the room, making the air hazy with smoke that dissipated fairly quickly, then attacked invisible enemies with the cable ties on his wrists, ankles and tail. He stretched all of his limbs, yawned hugely, and sprawled on the floor, knowing he had a few more minutes to be stretched out before it was back to the cage for him.

He fell asleep and was woken by a poking on his right shoulder. It was Bleichen, poking him in the shoulder with a hooked pole. Kurt grumbled and rolled over, but Bleichen hooked a collar ring and jerked Kurt to stand upright. The demon spluttered and raised himself into a crouch, tail swishing from side to side as he contemplated the attack.

Bleichen was too smug, too full of himself because Kurt was a great fighter and his son. _What better way,_ Kurt thought, _to get rid of his smugness than to demonstrate my great fighting skills and kill him? That would be great. And he wouldn't be fighting me back with spurs and teeth!_

While Kurt thought for a moment, Bleichen grew impatient and careless. Kurt was only aggressive to other half-demons, and Bleichen was overconfident that his son would not attack him and he thought he could fight him off. Another fatal ignorant thought was that the half-demons could only fight when testosterone-injected and fitted with spurs.

Very gradually, Kurt was shifting, unhooking the pole from his collar, but Bleichen didn't notice. One moment, Kurt was crouched on the ground, the next moment Bleichen was flattened against the concrete flat-out on his back with Kurt on top of him.

"You've kept me like an animal for _years_, fought me, claimed me as your prize. I'm nobody's prize, I'm nobody's son, you smug bastard," Kurt growled. Bleichen was terrified—when had the demon learned to talk?

Kurt bit into Bleichen's throat, suffocating screams before they were released. His teeth found the jugular vein, and Bleichen was killed. Just like that.

Kurt leapt up, off of the dead man, licked the blood off his lips, and bounded over to the door. He slipped out into the hallway, using scent to get back to the cages. As the half-demons saw him, they started screaming, but Kurt dashed past them to his cage, and skidded to a stop in front of Key's. He quickly unbolted the cage and Key tumbled out, then straightened up.

They stood there looking at each other for a moment, then Kurt wrapped Key in a bone-crushing hug.

"Okay, now get everybody out and tell them not to fight. We're getting freed. Remember that place Wengermann told us about? Tell everybody to teleport there and stay inside the building, stay quiet and unnoticed." Key said.

"What if they do start fighting?" Kurt asked.

"Shut them up and get them out. If they really can't be shut up, kill them." Key said. Brutal, but necessary.

Kurt nodded and started unbolting cages with the warning of "don't fight! Visualize a green barn filled with hay, get there, and stay quiet!"

Key and Kurt loosed a whole wall of cages and the half-demons teleported away quickly and quietly, with no fighting. The men hadn't noticed yet. They loosed another wall of cages quietly, and those demons were gone too. As they went around to the other side, Key teleported to the far end and started working down towards Kurt. They were almost done with the second to last wall of cages when one particularly aggressive male tumbled out and snarled, going for Kurt. He told him to shut up, but it was one of the stupider males, so Kurt pushed him down, pinned him, and killed him quickly.

However, the damage was done. The men had heard the snarl and the brief struggle, and were rushing towards them, guns drawn. In a frenzy, Key and Kurt loosed the rest of the demons and told them to run to a safe place then teleport.

Bullets ricocheted off the concrete and struck sparks on the cages as the men rushed in. The demons streamed up over the cages and galloped down the halls, seeking refuge from the bullets. It was a mad dash, more men seemingly coming out of the walls with guns blazing. Several demons were hit and killed, some injured. At a fork in the passages, the demons split and there were rapid _bamfs_ as they teleported to the barn out in the German countryside.

Several men were hot on Key and Kurt's tails as they split from the other demons. Key darted sideways into another hall, but Kurt ran straight. The men followed Key, and Kurt turned back. It wasn't a hall. It was a room. A dead end. Key was in the middle of the room, and two of the men had run back into the hall through another door after the other demons. It was just Key and one man and Kurt, hopelessly frozen in fear.

As Kurt realized the man's intentions, he screamed.

"_KEY!"_

Key turned slightly and reached out for Kurt, at the same moment the man pulled the trigger.

Time seemed to slow down for Kurt. Key's eyes communicated her last love for Kurt as the bullet hit her head. Kurt was showered in blood, but lurched forward to catch her falling body, arm still outstretched, eyes wide and dull. The man reloaded as Key's body fell into Kurt's arms. Tears were streaming down his face as the man pulled the trigger again, the shot echoing in Kurt's ears. The bullet went wide and whistled past his head, whipping his hair around.

In a grief-stricken, revenge-driven moment, Kurt teleported over to the man, landed on him, threw him to the ground, and bashed his head in against the floor.

He went back over to Key, still crying, and pulled a lock of her hair, wrapping it around his finger, then was forced to leave by the sound of boots rushing in the hall.

When the men came in, they saw the man dead on the floor and the demon dead on the floor, and the dissipating smoke of Kurt's teleportation meaning escape.

XXX

The teleportation was even more disorienting than usual. Kurt's head swirled, and as he landed, falling to the floor of the barn, tears still flowing freely, he felt all the demons' eyes turn towards him. He staggered upright in the knee-deep hay of the barn. They had made it. There was silence for a moment, expectant and heavy.

"So what now?" a half-demon called to Kurt.

Kurt's mind whirled. "Anybody hurt?"

Fifteen or so demons clambered down off the bales of hay stacked against the walls, with bullet wounds.

"Okay . . . if you think you're too hurt to get over it, stand over here. If you think you'll heal, stand over here." Kurt gestured. One demon with a gaping hole in her middle staggered over to the "too hurt" side. Kurt felt his instincts getting excited at the smell of blood, itching for a fight, but he let his sadness for Key quench it.

"I'm going to have to kill you," he whispered to the demon.

"_Please_," she gasped. Kurt maneuvered her out of the barn and away from windows, stood behind her, and snapped her neck in one quick motion. He caught her body and carried her, bridal-style, into the woods that came close to the barn on one side. Kurt noticed that the expression on her face was peaceful, happy even, and that lessened his sadness slightly. He pushed the body down a ravine and teleported back into the barn. Nobody questioned what he had done, and the other fourteen had climbed back up into the hay and were licking their wounds, and attempting to pull the bullets out; of which ten had been successful.

"Here it won't be like at the warehouse. Here we will live as real people, not just animals. We won't fight each other, we'll wear clothes, we'll spread out and run and be able to talk to each other without fear, and there will be no more needles. Here we will live in Dämonburg." Kurt announced. Many of the demons were literate to freedom and its ideas and cheered. Those who weren't were quickly filled in by their neighbors.

_Freedom always comes at a price._

XXX

Four days later, Kurt finally succumbed to his depression, left an older female half-demon named Ruth in charge, and disappeared back to the warehouse. He had, two days prior, pinched a shirt, pair of pants, hat, and coat—what he had always seen the men wear—from a nearby town, though he kept the belt, collar and cable ties—ties now replaced by a pair of renegade spurs someone had been freed wearing. His reasons for wearing the fighting gear, a mark of a miserable past life of violence and brutality and slavery, were simple: honor Key.

So that was how Kurt appeared inside the warehouse where he had once lived, the tall rows of cages desolately empty and eerily quiet, rank stench filling his nostrils, combined with the lingering scent of gunpowder and blood, a great blackish-brown pool of the dried stuff, on the floor in front of the demon's feet. He racked his brains, trying to remember the course that he and Key had run for freedom, and finally arrived at the room, fortunately encountering no one, though he could hear people in the building, their movements echoed off the bleak, cold walls. Everything was darker and colder than he remembered, though his memories were violent fragments, they were of crystal clarity and brightness. He bowed his head but didn't let the tears fall.

Then, he heard rumbling. An odd, mechanical-sort-of rumbling, and the ground was starting to vibrate. Dangerously. Kurt's head snapped up as the rumbling became a dull roar. He dashed out into the hallway, following his sensitive ears to the source of the noise. As it grew louder, there was a sudden _slam!_ and chunks of concrete rained down on the half-demon.

A big, black, serrated-edge metal bucket was slamming down onto the warehouse, destroying it. The noise was deafening, and Kurt choked and coughed on concrete dust as everything around him started falling apart. He wheeled around and shot off down the hallway, away from the destruction, leaping from chunk of concrete to the walls and dashing away as he heard screaming. Dear _Gott_, there were more demons here.

The half-demon followed his ears, racing away from the destruction, and arrived at a large room, though smaller than the room he'd been kept in, and saw that this had been the nursery. The cages were much bigger, about ten feet by ten feet, and filled with female full demons and their half-demon babies. Kurt 'ported around, unlocking cages quickly as the crashing caught up to him.

Unexpectedly, the roof crashed in, and Kurt looked up and heard the whirring of blades as well. A huge black thing was coming closer, the source of the whirring blades, though it didn't look like the big silver noisy birds that went overhead.

Ripping another lock off a cage, Kurt snarled and leapt onto the edge of the ruined roof, the rest of the freed demons following.

XXX

Kitty Pryde was glued to the TV, eyes wide in horror and shock. They were streaming live feed from where they were destroying an old warehouse in the city, the suspected site of a fighting arena that pitted half-humans against each other. As the crane's bucket crashed into the roof again, it opened up a gaping hole in the warehouse that the news helicopter zoomed in on.

There was one "demon" or so they were called, in clothes, who was freeing the other demons, locked in cages. The camera focused on it and it snarled at the camera before leaping the ten feet up to the edge of the roof. Kitty recoiled reflexively and the camera zoomed out to see the dark blue demons leaping out of the building and disappearing with loud cracks that sounded like gunshots and puffs of black smoke. It looked like they'd opened up a smoking portal to hell and freed all the demons.

Swiftly, the news copter veered left, still focused on the building, but an army copter came into view, people with guns hanging out the side, aiming for the demons. The announcer said something quickly in German, which was put in English subtitles. _These guns are dart guns so we can study the demons._ The subtitles said, and Kitty was relieved slightly.

The camera zoomed back in on the clothed demon, who seemed to be the leader, as it snarled up at the army copter and was hit in the neck with a dart. Kitty really recoiled at that. All over the roof of the warehouse, the demons who hadn't disappeared were being darted and brought down, some of them disappearing with darts in them.

Ten minutes later, the raid was over, and the army copter landed on an intact section of the roof and started collecting the bodies of the darted demons, piling them into their copter, putting numbered tags on the collars they wore.

Some demons were still half-awake and screeched horribly as the army men carried them to the copter, but the drugs soon took care of that. Kitty was half glad that these creatures were being treated humanely now, and half scared that these creatures could even exist. She steeled herself as she got the page that they'd been moved to the facility she was researching at as a Biology major on an exchange program in college in Germany.

XXX

Kurt's last memories were of freedom on the rooftop, then a stabbing pain in his neck. Then he woke up here. In another cage. It was big enough for him to stand up and walk around in, fifteen feet long by six feet wide, but it was a cage. Three sides were made by walls and one side was chain-link up to the ceiling. He didn't know it, but it was one of those cages in the animal shelters for dogs. He was here with twenty three other demons, thirty other demons, if you counted the children, at a reconverted animal-shelter-turned-humane-research-facility.

It was white and clean and there was a cot in one corner, a concept foreign to the half-demon. A young woman walked down the aisle, looking at a clipboard. She stopped at his cage and looked up at him from her clipboard. Kurt's favorite pastime was clinging to the wall and attempting to rip the chain-link out of the ceiling.

"Hello," she said up to him. Kurt looked down at her briefly, then went back to the chain-link. Her German was oddly accented. "My name's Kitty. I'm going to help you."

"The only help I need is getting out of here." Kurt growled, not even looking at Kitty, who was slightly surprised that the demon was _that_ smart. They'd told her he was intelligent, but she hadn't expected perfectly articulate speech.

"Please come down." Kitty asked nicely. Kurt bared his teeth defiantly at the young researcher. "Okay. What's your name?"

"What's it matter to you, bitch?" Kurt snarled, climbing down the wall and standing up in front of Kitty. He took pleasure in the fact that he was a head and shoulders taller than her.

"What's your problem?" Kitty asked, frowning at the demon.

He laughed in her face. "What's my _problem_? You've got to be kidding me." Kurt shook his head and leaped back up onto the wall, refusing to talk again.

Ten minutes later, Kitty stormed into her boss's office. "I can't deal with subject 1a." she declared, slapping her clipboard down on the boss's desk.

"Well, you're going to have to, seeing as nobody else wants to and you volunteered. If you really don't like it, you could quit." The boss said, looking over her glasses up at Kitty.

"Fine." Kitty sighed.

"Take subject 1a to the gym and antagonize him. See what he does." The boss said, looking at Kitty's clipboard. Kitty picked up the clipboard, nodded, and turned away. "Use a catch pole!" the boss called.

"Got it." Kitty said, and walked out, shutting the door behind her.

**Kee hee hee . . . the next chapter will be brilliantly fun to write. That might also be up today, if I'm lucky. *crosses fingers, then realizes you can't type with crossed fingers* Darn. Anyway, it's 1:29 as I'm finishing this sentence. Cuttin' it close! :)**


	5. Prove Me Wrong

**Stuck in a 9-hour drive down the east coast leaves me lots of time to write, but what have I been doing? Yes, sleeping, lazy me, sorry.**

Kitty recruited the help of several male friends to hook catch poles on Kurt's neck and wrists, not realizing that his adrenaline spiked dangerously as they did so. Kurt led quietly, instinctively expecting to be led into a fight. He still wore his spurs, as he'd thrown the drugs off too quickly for anybody to remove them. His pupils dilated and body quivered, tail thrashing, trying to hold in his bloodthirsty anticipation.

His teeth chattered as they put him in the gym where they tested dogs for aggression, outfitted with a Plexiglass-enclosed area that rendered the dogs' handlers safe incase the animals were aggressive. The three researchers released Kurt into the Plexiglass container and watched him pace around the outside, taking in every square centimeter of the enclosure.

The two male researchers jumped slightly as Kurt leaped up and scaled the wall onto the roof of the gym, then vanished and reappeared on the floor of the enclosure. Kitty took her catch pole up and went to the entrance of the enclosure, reaching in carefully and jabbing Kurt in the side as he came around.

Kitty barely had time to slam the door shut before Kurt reacted, turning with inhuman speed and lashing out with his wrist spurs, dropping onto four legs, and pacing around the door, waiting for another demon to enter and fight.

"This is crazy. Did you see how fast he moved? God, I wonder what sort of things they did to him to get him to be this way." Kitty commented.

"They must have imprinted the fighting on him since birth, and judging by the way he reacted to the poke, he got aggressive, that must've been the signal to fight. He's waiting for an opponent." Johannes, one of Kitty's male friends, commented. Kitty nodded sagely.

"Could we see how he reacts to a barking dog? That's pretty instinctive." Kitty asked. Johannes nodded and went to get one of the many dogs at the research lab. He came back ten minutes later with a pit-bull-mutt on a catchpole, muzzled.

"I got this one because she's . . . expendable, if necessary." Johannes said grimly. Kitty set her jaw as Johannes opened the door cautiously, put the dog in, and watched hesitantly as Kurt prowled over on four legs to investigate.

The dog became very nervous, trembling and whining, but as Kurt got closer it began to growl, long and low. Its growls were met with another sort, deeper and more rumbling, louder, emanating from Kurt. The dog snarled and barked as Kurt came ever closer, lunging for the half-demon's tail, but missing as it was snatched out of the way.

What happened in the split seconds then scarred all three observers, so vividly they would remember it for the rest of their lives.

The moment the dog had made a motion to go after the demon's tail, the demon whirled and struck a wrist spur deep into the dog's side with a powerful blow. It wrenched up, ripping a gash. Bowling the dog over with a blow to the belly with its tail spur, the demon ripped the catch pole wire, built to withstand the strongest dog bites, with its canine teeth.

The demon severed the dog's front leg messily with a well-placed bite, then ended its life by crushing its skull into the gym floor. This entire confrontation had taken place so fast, the researchers would have to view the high-speed footage to see what had happened. The dog didn't have time to react; it had died in a sudden, fierce blaze of agony.

Not usually faint of heart, Kitty fell to her knees, too horrified to tear her eyes away from the terrifying spectacle that had just occurred in front of her. Johannes hesitantly retracted the broken catch pole, eyes wide, face twisted into a sickened grimace as the half-demon dined ceremoniously on the dog's body.

"Leave the subject here," Kitty said faintly, though her voice was ringing in her ears, "go fill in the logs that the dog has been . . . euthanized . . . I'll inform the boss." She stood shakily, refusing help, and walked from the gym like a possessed woman.

XXX

"Let me see the footage." The boss demanded of Kitty. She nodded and pulled up the video from the gym incident. It had been two weeks since that, and Kurt had been moved from his normal cage to a high-security solitary cage, assessed as a danger to people. He was given two meals a day, pushed through a small door in the wall of his cage, monitored 24/7 by camera.

The boss's eyes grew wide and disturbed as he saw the slowed-down video, blow by blow.

"That's horrible." He said in a rough voice.

"For reference, that is Johannes reacting to the scene." Kitty pointed to the left of the computer screen. The boss's eyes grew to the size of tea saucers.

"This is slowed?"

"Yes, sir." Kitty answered dutifully.

"God . . ." the boss trailed off for a minute, watching the video over again. "Pryde, what's your professional opinion of this . . . demon?"

"He poses a very high danger to any animal near to him, and is old enough that he is set in his ways very deeply. The other demons rescued, the mothers and children, were never fought and stand very good chances of rehabilitation. He, however, has no such chance." Kitty said, wonder at the same time where the demon mothers and children would go once rehabilitated. The mothers were effectively feral, and stood no chance of learning higher intelligences, coupled with their being full demons, having none of the human intelligence their children possessed. The children were being taught to read, write, speak, and how to be civilized, and were very pleasant, cute little elfin students.

"Do you recommend euthanizing subject 1a?" the boss asked, interrupting Kitty's reverie.

"He does allow a good look into the mind of a fighting creature, and it would be a high achievement to tame him, if it were. I would like to continue to study him, see what provokes this vicious nature, and what allows him to be so civilized to speak to me, even if he is crude and abrupt; his speech is perfect. This proves that he learned from someone, and might still be receptive to learning." Kitty said, cursing the crazy ray of hope that had just appeared and spoke. What was she thinking; this was a vicious, rehabilitation-unreceptive demon that had killed a dog so quickly the human eye could not follow.

"So . . . no?"

"Yes. Subject 1a should be kept alive for further studying, and I will accept complete responsibility for him."

"Very well." The boss dismissed Kitty, and she left towards Kurt's cage with a grim determination. She reached the observation room, four monitors displaying the entire area of the room. Kurt was asleep on the cot on monitor 2.

"Any unusual activity?" she asked in her clinical voice. The person monitoring the videos shook his head. She leaned over and took the microphone, tapping it and watching Kurt wake up on the monitor, looking around from the source of the noise.

"Hello," she said, unsure of how to begin. "My name's Kitty. I'm speaking to you through a speaker, which means that I'm elsewhere, where you can't see me. I'm going to be studying you for the foreseeable future. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Are you okay with that?"

On the monitor, Kurt bared his teeth at the top of the ceiling of the cage, curling into a tight ball facing the wall. Kitty sighed.

"How old are you?"

No answer.

"What is your name?"

No answer.

"Why did you kill the dog?"

Kurt stirred, but no answer.

"Is there some key in your behavior that makes you angry?"

Kurt leaped up, crawled up the wall, and reached the speaker on the ceiling, and snarled into the microphone:

"Don't you _dare_ speak about Key."

He teleported back down to his cot and sat on it, shoulders hunched angrily, but there was a note of sadness that Kitty could see in the lazy way his tail flicked, unlike when he was truly angry, when it lashed back and forth violently.

"That's enough for today. Thanks, I'll take over monitoring." Kitty put down the microphone and took over watching the video. She watched for her shift, but there was no further change in Kurt's behavior.

The next day, she came back and told Kurt she would play music. She put on Beethoven, and watched with interest how Kurt stirred, looking up at the speaker, opening his mouth as if he was about to say something, then closed it and resumed his solitary behavior.

For another week and a half, Kitty continued this routine, until it was part of Kurt's daily schedule for Kitty to come talk and play music at six p.m., so that he expected it. One day, she didn't talk at six and watched Kurt's reaction.

He looked up to the speaker at six, looking confused. His face was a question mark that clearly said, "where are you?"

Kitty picked up the microphone at six thirty as started to talk. She was telling Kurt about herself, as she'd done for the past couple days. She was trying to familiarize Kurt with herself so that when she actually showed up in his room, which she hoped to do one day, he wouldn't attack her.

"Are you bored?" Kitty asked one day. There was a faint nod from the half-demon. Kitty's face split into a triumphant beaming smile at the reaction.

"What do you do all day long, other than just sit?" Kitty asked. There was no answer. That was too premature, she told herself.

"If I come down there and give you something to do, will you attack me?" Kurt shook his head. So he knew social cues, the head-nodding-head-shaking, the turning-the-back, and more.

"Watch carefully, please." Kitty told the researcher accompanying her down to the subject's cage. He had a dart gun ready if necessary. Kitty purposely made lots of noise opening the door, so Kurt would know they were coming. Kurt was still sitting on his cot, no change. Kitty's heart raced as she stepped into the demon's abode, knowing the subject's viciousness.

In her hands she held a Rubik's cube, gripped tightly in sweating palms as she reached the center of the cage and set the cube on the ground.

"The object of this game is to twist the sections of the cube around so that each side is the same color. There are six colors and six sides to the cube. It's called a Rubik's cube, and it's very fun." Kitty said. Kurt turned, and his glowing gold eyes locked with her sapphire ones for a moment before he began to crawl off the bed, but Kitty stood transfixed by his gaze as he came closer, rising from a four-legged gait to a standing one, an upright walk. Her heart hammered and she felt two hands seize her upper arms and wrench her backwards, the door slamming in front of her.

Johannes had dragged her from the cage. "What were you thinking! You could've gotten yourself _killed_! The subject's not ready for prolonged contact, so you've got to get in and out quickly." He chastised her.

"Sorry, sorry. Thank you for that, but in the future, dragging me forcibly out of the cage won't be necessary." Kitty responded icily, though not so coldly that her apology sounded harsh.

She returned to the observation room with Johannes, and saw that Kurt was playing with the Rubik's cube on his cot, much to her happiness. She dismissed Johannes and mused to herself what exactly had happened in the cage, moments ago.

They'd connected somehow, she was sure of that. It was like when a tiger and its trainer meet, deadly, finely tuned, hair-trigger killing machine meets nature's smartest creature. The power between such a bond is amazingly strong, inexorable, unbreakable. She had placed the ultimate amount of trust in that seconds-old, powerful connection, the trust of her life with the half-demon, and she was confident he wouldn't have done anything to her. But in those moments, she had seen a part of the demon's spirit, and he was a broken, suffering soul, in need of compassion and empathy, not force and brutality. She sensed he was a nice person deep enough down.

XXX

Weeks crawled past, and Kitty took any opportunity to go back down into the demon's abode, or Hell, as her colleagues called it. She wanted to test the connection as much as possible, though it was hardly feasible to do so, with the strict guidelines she had to follow, and Johannes ensuring she kept well within them.

Though the guidelines were tight and offered little in the way or wiggle room, she had managed to talk to Kurt one-on-one on two separate occasions. Once, she had asked him his name.

"My name is Kurt," he'd said, putting down the Rubik's cube that he'd solved twice, and taking the number puzzle gingerly, keeping his ten-feet distance that Kitty had warned him about.

The second time, he'd told her without any prompting from her about his favorite music: "I like Die Fantastischen Vier and Falco."

These small moments of speech strengthened the connection for Kitty, and were joyously recorded in her log, amidst days of "no change". She'd also had her monthly report to her boss two days ago, and had gleefully reported the speech contact. The young college student seemed hell-bent on proving all her colleagues wrong.

XXX

**I decided to break the cycle and update Metamorphosis because y'all seem to like it so much. Happy Memorial Day!**


	6. PTSD

**So many of you have asked for more frequent updates on Meta, so I have to oblige you, even if it means sleep deprivation a week (or so) from finals. This is a short chapter, but I'll update with the second part very quickly. I had to break for dramatic purposes. Hope you enjoy!**

Six months of consistency and building Kurt's dependence on Kitty gave the young college student immense satisfaction when she was able to carry a five-minute conversation with him, and he seemed reasonably intelligent, though his knowledge was severely limited. She had figured his age by what information she'd gleaned from a few encounters, and he seemed to be 19, or thereabouts, quite close in age to her own 21.

He was incredibly scarred, emotionally, mentally, and especially physically. The scars, shining and paler blue against his dark fur, stood out like neon lights on his strong, corded arms.

"How'd you get all those scars?" Kitty asked conversationally, near the end of the allotted five minutes of conversation, the strict rules set and enforced by Johannes. Kurt looked up at her, eyes meeting for a second, before blinking rapidly. They were both sitting on the floor, cross-legged, ten feet apart. His tail, which had been swishing in a lazy, relaxed way, suddenly started to thrash.

Violent, crystal fragments shot through Kurt's mind's eye, his whole body tensing as adrenaline flooded his veins. His mouth started to water and his senses sharpened. He stood, barely able to see, for the flashbacks were so strong.

_The men strapped on all the fighting gear and led Kurt down to the arena for a one-on-one match with the resident undefeated male of Kurt's age group. Kurt was shivering with the adrenaline and testosterone coursing through his body. The other male was drooling and tense as a drawn bow, staring eye-to-eye with Kurt._

_If they hadn't been restrained by men still holding their belt loops, they would've ripped each other apart. Kurt was corded and lean, whippy and agile, yet very strong. The other male was much the same way, though his arms looked to be stronger than Kurt's._

_The men released their half-demons and bailed as fast as they could, as the fight began that split second. Kurt leapt for the male, who ducked, and he hit the wall hard, but not hard enough to injure. His muscles coiled and released violently as he rocketed off the wall and landed on the male's back, teeth instinctively seeking the spinal cord as he dug his wrist spurs into the male's shoulder joints. He dug his ankle spurs into the male's hips, his tail spur going after the base of the male's tail._

_A veteran of over fifty fights, Kurt knew this tactic worked well if executed quickly, provided the demon didn't flip over backwards. Kurt dug his teeth into the male's neck, but the male had tensed all his muscles at the last second, and Kurt's attack barely got under his skin. Even so, Kurt tasted hot, coppery blood, and felt twinges of it on his fingers and toes. _

_The male leaped backwards, smashing Kurt into the wall and rubbing him off, teleporting and reappearing on the top of the mirror dome. Kurt teleported up to meet him. The male moved the second Kurt touched the glass. He leapt agilely onto Kurt's back, pulling him off the glass and throwing him down, landing heavily on his back. Agony raced through him as ribs snapped._

Kurt felt the lumps on his sides where his ribs had healed abnormally. Old pains were coming back to him. He snarled as the vivid memory continued. Kitty stood and was starting to move away slowly, but the half-demon's eyes were still closed.

Suddenly, his eyes flicked open and landed on Kitty's. His jaw worked frantically, as if trying to chew something. He slashed his fists through the air, accustomed to attacking with spurs. He teleported, and delayed the reentry, appearing in front of Kitty, barring her exit.

"_If you want me, you'll have to kill me!"_ Kurt howled, in his flashback and in real life. That fight had been one of the hardest of his life, longer than three hours, but the hardest fight was the fight for his life for seventeen years.

Kitty's eyes were wide with fear, her mind was somewhat frozen. Part of her said, just let him kill you, and part was psychoanalyzing him. He had PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, because he reacted so violently to an innocent question. He was a broken person. Like a feral child, though smarter, stronger, and vicious.

Time slowed as Johannes appeared behind Kurt and raised his rifle, armed with darts. Kurt's eyes darted, his ears flicked back: he was aware of Johannes and the rifle. Johannes raised the rifle, and was about to fire. Kitty's mind raced. He reacted violently to violence. By the same logic, he would react calmly to calm proceedings.

Johannes's finger was on the trigger when Kitty screamed, "_Don't shoot!"_

Too late. The shot fired, and Kitty's eyes traced the path of the dart as it flew towards Kurt. He teleported at the last second.

The dart flew unhindered, and Kitty barely had time to register the fact before the dart, devoid of its half-demon target, hit her square in the neck. Agony ripped through her, and her hands moved up to touch the dart. She was surprised by the initial lack of blood, then it came in spurts as her heart pumped.

Johannes's face moved from concentration to horror. He threw the rifle down and started towards Kitty. She felt a sudden rush of hot air as her vision blurred and every sense became detached. _That must be the drugs_, the thought vaguely.

Hot, strong, three-fingered hands gripped her around the upper arms and lifted her up so she was cradled against the half-demon's solid chest. Her eyes flicked lazily to Johannes, primal anger on his face as he continued his charge. The world whirled briefly, and she had to readjust her gaze to see a spaded blue tail flick Johannes across the face. From her detached, deaf perspective, it didn't look hard. Johannes fell to the floor, momentum arrested, though he slid for a distance, an angry, hand-sized, spade-shaped weal on his right cheek.

Then the world swallowed her, pain ceasing, senses gone. She was floating inside her own body, a double-beat tattoo beating in a muted manner, slowing. Just all black and wonderful and peaceful.

Death . . .


	7. Daemonburg

Kitty opened her eyes to the suspended ceiling of the research lab's clinic. She felt like she'd been hit by a car, or at least what she _suspected_ being hit by a car felt like. The sudden thought that this wasn't where she last was occurred to her. She sat up and saw nobody in her immediate vicinity, and her head hurt, but it wasn't too bad.

She'd been put into one of those infuriating, embarrassing hospital gowns, she saw, and fixed the situation by hijacking a bathrobe, finding the "nurse" in the office off the clinic.

"What happened?" she asked groggily.

"Uh, well . . . you were hit by a dart, and it put you in, like, a mini-coma, and we had to use the defibrillator. It was pretty scary, Johannes was freaking out like you were going to die, never mind the half-demon that saved you . . ." the "nurse" said, putting down her report that she was filling out.

"Kurt saved me?" Kitty questioned.

"Yeah, the drugs in that dart were mixed to be really potent, and for a person a lot bigger and stronger than you. They're all sedatives and stuff like that, so they would've killed you because they stopped your heart. The demon got the dart out of your neck—the dart hit your curetted **[1]** artery, so you lost a lot of blood, too, we gave you a transfusion—and, where was I . . . oh, yeah, the demon sucked most of the drugs out, so he got knocked out too, but it didn't do too much damage to him."

"But it did do damage?"

"A little . . . it knocked him out really quickly, and he fractured his skull on the floor when he fell, but that's a minor injury compared to what we saw in him. We gave him a physical and X-rays and all that while he was out. His body throws off drugs really fast, but it didn't throw off a concussion, so we used it to our advantage."

"Did the concussion do anything to him? His brain?" Kitty was concerned.

"Not that we can tell. His behavior's normal, though he gets really restless at six."

"Oh good, my training worked." Kitty muttered under her breath. "I talked to him every day at six, so he came to expect it, and freaks out when I don't come talk or give him a new toy. He gets bored," she added defensively.

"Ah. You're okay to leave, if you want; we washed your clothes for you, they're on the table on the other side of the room. Johannes wants to talk to you." The nurse said, as if she just remembered it.

"Great." Kitty muttered sarcastically. She splashed cold water on her face and got dressed, walking across the building to the boss's office.

"Is Johannes around?" she asked, poking her head around the doorway.

"I think he's down with the elves." The boss said, looking up from his novel. Kitty nodded and went off to the impromptu classroom that the young half-demon children were being taught in. She opened the door and watched as sixteen pairs of soft gold eyes turned to her.

"Hi, kids," she greeted.

"Hello!" They chorused.

"Johannes, you wanted to see me?" Kitty asked levelly.

"Yes, I did. Class, I think this is it for today. See you tomorrow." Johannes said, and the sixteen adorable little elves ran up and gave Johannes hugs. They'd learned so much valuable information from the little half-demons, or elves, about their nature, untainted by fighting and abuse. And one thing they knew for sure: half-demons were sweet and very big on affection by nature.

Smiling as the little elves ran back to their mothers, down the hall, Johannes confronted Kitty. She was glad she'd caught him in a good mood, or he would've really torn into her.

"Kitty, this is about that half-demon you're keeping." Johannes started.

"Yeah, I figured as much," Kitty said sarcastically, but couldn't muster much. Johannes gave her a sharp look.

"I really care about you, and after seeing what happened with the demon . . . I don't want you to lose your life for a creature that can't be rehabilitated. You're worth more than that. I'm reassigning you to work with the elves. Sven's working with the demon now. He's starting today, in about fifteen minutes, actually." Johannes looked down at his watch, oblivious to Kitty's horrified, open-mouthed stare.

"What?.! No! You can't do that!" Kitty cried shrilly.

"I can and I have." Johannes said levelly, his gaze reminding her firmly that he was, in fact, her superior.

"Why Sven? Sven can't even handle the dogs! Sven just—" Kitty cut off abruptly.

"Yes?" Johannes prompted.

". . . euthanizes them." Kitty finished, the horror truly dawning on her.

"The demon is untamable, he's dangerous, and he's proved that." Johannes said.

"NO! No, no! I won't let it happen! He never laid a finger on me! You can't do this! There's so much left to learn from him yet! We're learning how to treat abuse victims and fighting dogs from him! Don't you care?" Kitty growled, pacing.

"I _do_ care, about your safety. I don't want to let anything happen to you." Johannes said, his voice still irritatingly calm.

"Oh, but you don't care about Sven, who's marching straight into Hell with a catch pole, a needle, and violence? All three things that make Kurt kill?" Kitty raved.

"Sven can take care of himself," Johannes said, voice rising slightly.

Kitty paused for a moment, realization making her eyes widen. "Don't patronize me! I can take care of myself! I'm not a weak woman who needs a man to define her! And I certainly don't want _you_ to define me!" Kitty shrieked. Johannes reached out and grabbed her upper arms in a strong grip. "Let go of me! Let go of me, you ass—"

Johannes planted a firm kiss on Kitty's lips, though she continued to try to scream, to escape him. He released her and she stumbled back suddenly, falling against the wall, looking up at him through angry eyes, chest heaving.

"That's sexual assault. I'm going to get you, you bastard." She said quietly, with conviction.

"And that's verbal assault _and_ defying your superiors; I'll get you for that, Katherine." Johannes looked down at his watch. "Sven should be taking care of that _demon_," he spat the word like a curse, "right about now."

Johannes watched Kitty's angry face blanch with a sense of angry satisfaction. Kitty saw the satisfaction on Johannes's face and set her jaw, steeling her gaze, turning on heel, and sprinting down the hall, towards Hell.

She slid to a stop outside the metal door to the concrete room known as Hell. Sven was already inside, approaching Kurt, who lay on his cot. She saw the signs in the half-demon's behavior that meant trouble. His ears were aggressive: flat back; his tail was a warning: lashing violently; his body was prepared for a struggle: tense.

Kitty threw open the door as Sven hooked the catch pole around Kurt's neck and pulled it very tight. The half-demon was wrenched off his cot, choking and grasping at the wire around his neck, threatening to garrote him. He lashed and twisted like a cat, kicking out with his long, strong legs, but Sven was out of reach.

Pressing the pole against Kurt's neck, pinning his body down, Sven approached, uncapping the needle as he went. Kitty launched herself towards the two, seeing Kurt's ears pick up on the sounds of her footsteps.

"Sven, stop!" she screamed.

Sven looked up. "Why?"

"Because . . ." Kitty used the excuse of catching her breath to think, "I got orders from the boss that he's not going to be killed. He's going to be kept for another two weeks, then euthanized."

"Do you have the papers?" Sven's eyes narrowed, but he stood from his crouched position near Kurt's arm, ready to administer the lethal injection.

"Yes, here, in my pocket, folded up." Kitty made a show of searching in her pockets, thanking God when her frantic fingers found a document she'd stashed in her pocket. It probably wasn't legible from the washing, but from ten feet away, Sven wouldn't be able to read it. She pulled the papers out and took time smoothing them. Sven smoothed his goatee impatiently.

"Here they are!" Kitty waved them around.

"Bring them here, let me read them." Sven said, reaching an arm out to receive the papers. Kitty swallowed nervously, blinked and started slowly towards him. Five feet away, he took a step towards her and snatched the papers.

Kitty heard a huge gasp of air, then the same low, rumbling growl she'd heard before the dog died. She tensed her body, preparing to leap back.

In one fluid motion, almost too fast to see, Kurt leaped up, tail snatching the bared needle from Sven's hand, three-fingered hands catching the researcher's arms, tackling him. He passed the needle to his hand and stabbed it into Sven's neck. His bellow of pain and surprise echoed off the cavernous room's walls, and surely was heard in the hall.

Kitty leaped towards Kurt as feet pounded and people started to appear in the doorway, dart rifles ready. Her fingertips had just grazed the half-demon's shoulder before it felt like she was being drawn through a very tight, extremely hot tube.

XXX

Kitty's head spun, senses disoriented, so when she felt solid ground beneath her feet, no sooner had she realized it than her head was hitting it.

"Oww," she moaned. Looking up and waiting for the spinning to stop, she saw Kurt standing over her protectively, looking concerned. Past him were some four hundred half-demons in various states of dress, all staring intently at her. And they weren't very pleased to see a human in their midst.

Kurt's face was drawn, but Kitty saw traces of concern in the depths of the demon's eyes; those sensitive, gold eyes, witnesses to horrors far beyond his years. "How did you get here?" He asked tensely.

"I think I grabbed your shoulder right as you teleported." Kitty said, not sitting up, for fear the other half-demons would attack her. Her heart was hammering, and every single demon could hear it loudly and clearly: a big neon sign saying, "I'm afraid, please attack me".

"This is Kitty, she's a human, but she's nice. She took a bullet for me." Kurt addressed the demons, in a more growling, guttural dialect of German that Kitty recognized from when Kurt first arrived, highlighting how much more civilized he'd become. At his statements, some of the demons' looks changed from uncertainty and slight anger to respect.

"She's a human! Humans took our lives from us! Humans made us fight! Humans made us kill! We don't want to kill! We want to live peacefully! In a _human-free_ society!" A female shrieked, mustering the crowd into anger again. "And you've gone and brought a human _to ruin our lives again!_ _Kill them!"_

The mob turned to the two, and began to approach. A wiry male leaped onto Kurt's back and dug for his spinal cord with his teeth, but Kurt threw him off. Kitty scrambled up, heart in overdrive, pupils dilated, eyes huge. Demons were piling on to Kurt, three at a time, and blood was spilling. Vicious, wild snarling ripped the air. The staccato clicks of teeth snapping on empty air popped Kitty's eardrums. The coppery smell of blood, stronger than human blood, hit Kitty's nose.

A demon dropped to all fours and slunk around the writhing fight, crawling inexorably towards Kitty. She backed a step before realizing she was backing into more trained-to-kill, bloodthirsty demons. The crawling demon, a female with scars across her face, twisting her features into a grimace, jumped at Kitty to land on her chest and knock her down. Kitty turned at the last minute and the demon just caught her shoulder, spinning her wildly and pulling her down on top of the female.

The female's teeth sent agony spearing through her body like fire, and she screamed for it to all end, her body going still. It threatened to pull her under, to kill her. This time, she _wanted_ the death.

Kurt, surrounded by demons, took a heavy blow to the face, sending him reeling. He shook his head, spattering blood everywhere, and opened his jaws to snarl in a spine-chilling way. These demons had their blood up, and nobody was relenting. It was to the death now. He heard Kitty's scream of mortal agony, which normally wouldn't have triggered a reaction, but it did. He owed her a life debt, twice over.

Adrenaline surging, Kurt kicked like a horse, hearing the snap of a femur, creating a break in the ring around him. Charging through it, whipping the demons on his side with his tail, Kurt made a run for where demons were piling onto Kitty for blood.

"_Kurt!_" A female voice shrieked over the din of the mob. Kurt froze, all senses straining. _Key?_ A sharpened stick, hardened by fire, came spinning over the heads of the mob at him. He caught it reflexively, taking a moment to realize what to do with it.

Continuing his charge forward, he jumped onto the pile and stabbed down, repeatedly and hard, into the demon's back. He stabbed at throats, backs, chests, arms, legs, anything. Another demon started laying into the pile, using her teeth far more effectively than Kurt ever had. Demons fell dead from the two, fighting towards Kitty, who was miraculously still alive.

"Gunner! Don't kill the girl!" The Key-demon shouted. The scarred-face female, who had incited the mob, looked up, the limp form of Kitty clutched in her arms, human blood lacing her bared fangs.

With a howling snarl, Kurt sailed over the corpses of demons, hands grasping Gunner's head, throwing it down onto the ground. Kitty fell from the demon's grasp, ruby blood staining rivers down her back, though the blood flow had mostly stopped. Filled with anger, Kurt took the spear and stabbed it through Gunner's eye sockets, blinding and piercing the demon's brain. Repeatedly, he smashed her skull into the ground, primal fury gripping him. The release felt so good.

When he was satisfied Gunner was dead, Kurt lifted her mangled corpse by the throat, her blood spattered over his face and bare torso.

"This is your leader! She is dead by my hands! Continue to fight and suffer the same fate!" Kurt bellowed. The demons that didn't have their blood up faded away, but the ones with adrenaline in them were unstoppable. Kurt dispatched them one-by-one, with twists of the neck or bites on the throat. He turned, blood still up, to see a demon, _Key_, cradling Kitty's head.

"By the same logic you used to kill those other demons, I should kill you." Key said, voice level and light, as it always had been. The realization that she was there put Kurt down a few notches immediately.

"But how . . . I saw you shot . . . you died . . ." Kurt choked, words failing him. He stumbled over to Key, putting his hand on her shoulder to make sure she was real. She was wearing rough linen clothes, and had less scars on her face, but she was there.

"Am I in heaven?" he asked, dazed.

"No, Kurt. I'm real, you're real, everything's real . . . except Key is dead. You did see her die." Key said softly.

"How?" Kurt moaned, like a little lost child.

"Key and I were twins. I'm Iske. I lived on the other side of you." Iske said. Kurt fell to his knees as fresh tsunamis of grief at Key's death washed over him. He felt a gentle, three-fingered hand on his back.

"You're so much like her," Kurt said, addressing the ground. Iske was quiet. They sat for a moment, then Kitty stirred, a moan of pain escaping her throat.

"Come on, let's get you fixed up," Iske said, holding Kitty's head carefully still as she picked the college girl up.

"Where are we going?" Kurt asked, more like a small child now.

"Risa. She knows how to heal any demon-inflicted wound. I think you'll like the way Dämonburg looks." Iske said, with a knowing smirk.

Iske carried Kitty and led Kurt towards the familiar green barn, more decrepit-looking than Kurt remembered, but what stunned him was the town that had sprung up around it. In the field that had gone to weed in front of the barn, wood-grass-mud huts and buildings had cropped up, and the demons that had abandoned the mob scene were going between the buildings, to and from houses and stores.

"Dämonburg is completely self-sufficient. Risa is our healer, Jaquelynne is our farmer, Lothar is our butcher, and we even have a guard to stop fights. There's a strange little man that runs it, he's not human, but half-animal, really. He stumbled in out of the woods one day, called himself Logan, and started running the guard." Iske explained, pointing with her tail where everyone was.

Risa the healer had a hut in the middle of the town, a fairly large one, too. Iske walked right on in, as if she lived there. "Risa! I've got a girl with bites on her neck, and I need help."

Risa, who was tall and willowy, barely scarred, appeared and looked over Kitty quickly. "A human," she murmured in surprise. She had Iske put Kitty on a table made of tree branches and flip her over. There were four deep puncture wounds on her neck, scissoring in under her spine.

"These look like Gunner's teeth." Risa said. Kurt nodded. Risa disappeared out the back of the hut and came back with a clay jug of a strong-smelling liquid. "Alcohol," she explained, "we ferment wheat."

Risa soaked balls of linen in the alcohol, then packed the linen into the puncture wounds. She took two yards of the rough cloth and wrapped it snugly around Kitty's neck, like an odd scarf to hold the alcohol in.

"She'll stay here for a while. Flip her back over please." Risa instructed, and Iske did as she was told.

"Thank you," Iske said, placing a chaste kiss on Risa's lips. Kurt was confused, as he had no real concept of affection. He realized Kitty's eyes were open at that point, though she looked faraway.

"Consider the debt repaid." Kurt told her, and a flash of confusion entered Kitty's eyes before she fell unconscious again.

XXX

Kurt and Iske wandered through the town visiting people, Kurt growing accustomed to the developing culture of the half-demons. At one house, they stopped, and Iske poked her head inside the door, calling. A woman inside answered. Iske led Kurt in.

The woman was sitting on a bench hewn from a tree trunk in front of a fire, cradling a bundle of linen in her arms. "Hi, I'm Stefani." She greeted him.

"Kurt." Kurt replied. A curious soft look came over both Stefani's and Iske's faces as they looked at the bundle. Kurt came closer and saw that it was a tiny, cerulean blue baby, face unscarred and peaceful as it slept. A sense of wonder stole into Kurt's heart.

"We call her Edelkind, the Precious Child. She's the first one born in Dämonburg." Stefani explained. Kurt had never seen such a pure, innocent being, such a paradox to her scarred mother, whose innocence was robbed at age six.

"Have there been many fights?" Kurt asked in a sudden change of subject.

"There've been some, but not many. It's quite peaceful." Stefani answered.

Kurt nodded. "Very nice meeting you and Edelkind . . . I hope I'll see you around."

Kurt and Iske left Stefani and Edelkind, and continued to meet and greet around town. Kurt found himself liking this very much, and a very new sense of hope, peace, and above all, love, rising in his heart.

XXX

XXX

**I figured Kurt and Kitty needed a break from all the violence-death-OMG stuff that's been happening to them lately. So for action-death-violence lovers, I apologize (I myself am one of them), and I promise all the good stuff will be happening in chapter eight.**

**[1] Not sure if that's how the artery's name is spelled, but I am meaning the artery in your neck that provides blood to your brain.  
**


	8. Night of Freedom

**I'm watching X2, and I just saw the kick-arse Nightcrawler scene, so I feel like writing more violent things, but I must hold off on that, for risk of ruining the story . . . I have to set this up nicely, now . . . but I think the end of this chapter will lead into violence.**

**Six years later**

Dämonburg was thriving, and the whole town was excited for the Night of Freedom. For reference, Edelkind, or Edel, was seven years old, and she had lots of peers in her generation. The Night of Freedom was the anniversary of the demons' bid for freedom from their human captors. Kitty had stayed in Dämonburg, become more accepted by the demon community, and taught school for the kids. She had suffered no ill effects of Gunner's bite, save the fact she got occasional aches in her neck. Kurt had continued on his path to recovering from his PTSD and deep-seated grief for the loss of Key rekindled by the appearance of Iske.

Kitty could remember one incident so clearly, it was almost yesterday, pertaining to Kurt's grief.

_A month after Kitty's injury, she'd been moved to the hut Iske and Kurt shared, Kitty was awake late at night, lying on her woven-branch bed. She had a case of insomnia, and she went wandering through the town, arriving at the edge of the houses, gazing pensively out over the moonlit field of wheat, the woods on either side providing the perfect setting for the strip of field. _

_She rested her chin on her palm, elbows on her knees, which were pulled up to her chest. There was a sudden, choking cough from the woods, preceding a loud, keening wail. The howl ripped at Kitty's heart, with the grief and whole-hearted, raw emotions it embodied. The wail went on for the longest time. Finally, it trailed off into a broken moan. The screamer took another breath before shrieking his grief in a series of wracking sobs._

_Kitty found tears trailing down her cheeks in sympathy with the screamer, then realized the screamer was moaning one word: Key. Kitty choked._

"_Oh, God . . . Kurt," Kitty said softly._

_The next morning, Kitty found Kurt back on his bed, though he had twigs tangled in his short-cropped hair, and Kitty saw dried tear tracks on his cheeks. _

After that incident, she'd never seen nor heard Kurt betray any grief over Key. He'd let go. He'd taught the younger generation a controlled fighting, to celebrate their heritage, but he was going to be leading the procession in with Iske on horseback.

The whole town assembled just outside the barn, which was the center of town meetings. There was a twenty-foot-diameter circle marked out where the demons would fight in a manner similar to mixed martial arts. The main street of Dämonburg was lined with demons, waiting for the procession to come in and start the fights. Kitty saw demons' heads turn, their ears more finely tuned than hers, picking up on the staccato hoofbeats of the horses.

Kitty turned and saw with glee the animals approaching at a canter, half-demons mounted on their backs, bareback, with rope halters as bridles. They were groomed to perfection, manes and tails flowing. The half-demons wore bracelets with dulled spikes on their wrists, ankles, and tail, collars on their necks, and belts on their waists, over the loincloths they wore as homage to their past. The women went bare-chested, no shame, as it wasn't part of the culture.

The grim determination the demons wore on their faces was a testament to their solemn honor of the life they once lived and how they escaped it. Kurt, leading the group of four half-demons, was mounted on a dark horse, for symbolization of their dark past. They chose horses because they were noble, strong, sensitive creatures, like themselves. Oft misunderstood and abused, but good at heart; moving with a controlled violence, majesty, and power that captivated.

Kurt cantered his horse into the middle of the circle and turned it sharply. It reared up, striking with its front legs and screaming. Kurt let go of the rope and raised his arms up, outstretched to his sides. He struck an imposing figure.

"Let us honor our pasts! Let us fight!" He bellowed, and the horse dropped back down to four legs, then fell onto its knees in a bow, head low in submission to history. Kitty knew how much practice this maneuver took, she'd seen him on the horse's back many times, just lying there, communing with it, gaining its trust. He had a softer side, a gentle side, that working with the horse had set free; it was a side lost to culture.

Over the next hours, opponents entered the ring and respectfully fought each other, winning or losing by placing their teeth gently on either side of their opponent's spine in their neck. Kitty sat with Kurt and discussed the half-demons' fighting skills. Kurt had come out of his shell so much, time being the only healer he needed. He was a strong person, though he had to learn about most things that people born into culture take for granted: for example, the concept and display of affection.

Kurt had taken to Kitty very well, as a friend, and experimented with his use of affectionate displays with her. They were sitting together, leaning back against Kurt's horse, which was lying down behind them, muzzle resting on the ground, half asleep. Kitty was stroking the horse's flank absently with a few fingers when Kurt leaned over and smoothed a few stray locks of hair behind her ear. Kitty's heart fluttered and she gave a shy smile, responding by twining her other hand with his.

Kurt gave her a smirk before 'porting away and reappearing a moment later with food. "I thought you were hungry."

"Thanks." Kitty accepted the food, which was shish kabobs, gratefully, taking Kurt's hand again and reclining against the horse again. Kurt absently smoothed tangles in its dark mane, earning a nicker of affection from it. The band started to play, using improvised instruments to create a solemn, powerful anthem.

The fights continued well into the night, and Kitty never strayed from Kurt's side, for as the temperature dropped, the warmth from both the horse and the half-demon kept her warm, causing her to snuggle into his side, head nestled under his chin, his arms wrapped around her, her arms around his waist. When the moon was high in the sky, the festivities were over, Kurt roused his horse, and the two rode back to the stable, dropping off Kurt's horse, making sure it was stabled and comfortable before walking home. Kitty nearly fell asleep on her feet, so Kurt ended up carrying her back to the hut, placing her gently on her bed. He turned and was going over to his bed, when he felt a gentle tug on his tail, making him turn.

"Stay with me," Kitty said groggily, giving another tug on Kurt's tail. He smiled softly and sat on the edge of Kitty's bed, smoothing her hair. She fell asleep quickly and Kurt tried to go back to his bed, but every time he stood, Kitty woke slightly and pulled him back. Eventually, Kurt surrendered and nudged Kitty over, lying down next to her. She slept soundly, and so did Kurt.

XXX

Six years at the research lab promoted Johannes to the boss, and Sven to the second-in-command (Kurt never pushed the plunger in the needle down, so the injection was never administered). Johannes had not lost his obsession of Kitty, and schemed on where she could possibly be, but most of all, his powerful hate of the demon that had stolen Kitty from him. _His_ Kitty.

"Jo . . . I just found a report in the police logs in Bavaria about appearances of demon vandals and thieves." Sven burst into Johannes's office, slightly out-of-breath, waving the manila file that contained his key to Kitty. Johannes jumped at Sven and grabbed the file from his fist, opening it a little too zealously and tearing the folder. However, inside, was the location of the report. The location of the demons' hideout.

Bingo.

XXX

XXX

**Ah, another break for dramatic purposes, hope you don't mind. Epicness in chapter nine, if you please! I just watched the first two X-Men movies and got inspired, and am desperately wanting to see X-Men First Class! **

**Hope you don't mind the horsey reference here, I just **_**HAD**_** to. I'm addicted, I have to include them in every aspect of my life. I toned it down so you non-horsey folks wouldn't mind. :)**


	9. Round Two

**Oh, I wanted so badly to put a horrific nightmare to reveal more terrors from Kurt's past in here . . . but I promised you epicness, and child abuse is not epic in any way, shape, or form. Neither is killing, but . . . *sigh* ah, the complex issues of morals.**

**On a different note, I apologize for any inconvenience or worry I may have caused my readers by posting the notice of another universe on this (and other) story, and I apologize specially to Ember a.k.a Phantasma for not having this posted yesterday.**

The team moved quietly through the pre-dawn darkness, guns at the ready, radios quiet, attempting to sight their targets. The quiet stomp of their boots on the hard-packed earth as they circled around the dilapidated barn didn't wake the half-demons in the village below them. As soon as they each had sights on a hut and relayed that info to their unit leader, he gave the signal to move in.

The men, dressed in black, carrying bulky equipment and arms, filed neatly and stealthily through the narrow dirt lanes that formed the veins of Daemonburg. In a black, unmarked van parked on a hill a quarter mile away, Johannes controlled all the information as he sat at the console at the back of the mobile command unit. He saw the video feeds from the soldiers' cameras, heard their radio transmissions and audio from the cameras . . . he was almost there, but safer.

"_Also, gehen wir_." _Alright, let's move._ Johannes instructed the unit leader. He made a quick hand gesture and his men moved to the doors of the huts. Some of the demons were stirring, sensing danger.

"_Los, los, los!"_ _Go, go, go!_ The cry rang and gunshots rattled through the dark air, accented by angry shrieks of pain, fear, and fury from the demons. Their scarred faces lit up as instinct and adrenaline surged, leaping for the men. The first wave of half-demon attackers fell with rounds ripping holes through their bodies, augmenting the slashing scars long healed. The second wave of demons were smarter, seeing their fallen comrades. They teleported around behind the men and attempted to bite spines, fangs colliding painfully with ceramic armor there. This did not deter them in the slightest as red gore sprayed around them from hits: this was their _element_.

Kurt and Iske's hut was at the edge of the village, so they were woken by the unearthly sound of combat, disoriented by the darkness, but alerted to the coming danger. Kitty stumbled up and looked around, wide-eyed as Kurt sprinted past her, out into the lane, Iske hot on his heels. She clamped her jaw and followed them, her years of experience now in the art of demon fighting paying off.

It sounded like Hell's death outside, the screams, shrieks, moans, and shouts ripping at Kitty's ears; coppery, tangy scent of strong demon blood hitting her full on; the sickening crunch and squish of dead bodies beneath her feet; the carnage around her looking like Jackson Pollock on a rampage with red paint while coils of shining grey intestines hung out bullet holes and bite wounds, spilled bodily fluids adding to the cocktail of nauseating scents, sights, and sounds. Nothing could've prepared her for this, except years of living in these conditions.

Kurt immediately downed a man with sheer brute force, though the man annoyingly popped back up, only to suffer a blow to the groin by Kitty's stiletto knee. _How idiotic of them, to go charging into battle without cups. Oh well, their loss._ Kitty thought scathingly as she set her aim below the belt and did whatever she could to get the men on the ground before breaking their necks or smashing their noses up into their brains, killing them as effectively as the demons' bites. The battle was a nightmare for her, but reality struck home as the demon on her right was slammed in the shoulder with a high-caliber round—one that could've easily hit Kitty if the demon hadn't stumbled into her and knocked her an inch to the left on accident.

The demons' forces were flagging; they'd brought little more than knives to a gunfight. They were doomed, but wouldn't go down without a bloody fight if they had any say about it. Kitty heard young children's screams and sought the source immediately, swinging around the doorframe to a hut. Edelkind and her friends were backed up against a wall while two men methodically shot them; four-year-olds falling with bullets shredding their soft young bodies.

"_You bastards!_" Kitty shrieked, grabbing the soldiers' attention. She couldn't see their faces through their oversized goggles, but was sure their eyes widened at seeing a human woman there. Kitty looked like an avenging angel: white linen nightgown hanging off her wiry frame, sapphire eyes filled with the primal fury of a mother protecting her children, hair being whipped around by the shots fired outside. They say hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn. No, hell hath no punishment greater than a mother's fury. Even though the demon children weren't hers, biologically, she felt as if they were, as she'd helped raise most of them since toddlerhood.

The rage that gripped Kitty carried her to kill both men, one by smashing his nose, the other by sheer luck: the first man's finger hitting the trigger as he seized up in death and spraying a burst of bullets, hitting his partner right across the torso. Kitty instructed the kids to hide in the hut, which resulted in them climbing up into the rafters, though Adelaide, who was only two, had to be held by Kitty because an awry bullet had shattered her left leg. The sky-blue baby girl in Kitty's arms, tears drying on her cheeks though her leg was a mangled mess, normally bright gold eyes dulled and glazed in submission to pain, reminded Kitty of why she couldn't let these barbaric, bastardly men win. There would be no cages for this little girl, even though her life of mobility had been stolen from her already.

Laying Adelaide down on a not-too-damaged bed, Kitty picked up the young children's bodies and took them outside. "I'm sorry, darling. Your soul be in heaven, your body help free your kin." Kitty murmured to each, the customary demonic passing phrase, not that they'd had to use it much—until today. Kitty went outside and saw that only a handful of men stood, still fighting, and more demons kept coming, though the ground was littered with bodies, human and demon alike. She estimated the population had been more or less halved.

Kitty did her best fighting, until the number of soldiers was limited to three. "STOP FIGHTING!" she shouted. A few demons turned towards her, and the men looked at her in confusion. "SEIZE THEM AND KEEP THEM AS PRISONERS!"

"YOU HEARD THE LADY, MOVE!" Kurt bellowed. Demons sprung into action faster than the men could react. Within moments, they were stripped of all weapons, arms, and clothes, down to their underwear and wrists tied behind their backs with cords from their clothing, ankles bound in a similar way, blindfolds and gags implemented from clothing as well.

XXX

In the van, Johannes was raging. There was Kitty, right there! Why were the men continuing to fight, when he'd clearly said to arrest her? She was so skinny, so underweight! Muttering murderously, Johannes donned armor and a suit and gun, running down to the village.

XXX

The demons heard another man approaching, and ordered themselves to ambush him the second he came within range. From a distance, Kurt spotted it was Johannes. "Kitty, you're bait! Stand there and look preoccupied with that corpse! We'll kill him when he comes closer!" Kurt called to Kitty.

"No, don't kill! Arrest! I'll explain why afterwards!" Kitty amended, doing as she was told. Johannes thundered down into the village, all attention focused on Kitty, red gore splattered across her face and clothes as she gently closed the eyes of a dead half demon, folding its hands onto its chest peacefully. He ran straight ahead, unaware of the masses of demons on the roofs above him, waiting to strike.

"Kitty! There you are! Come here!" Johannes shouted, twenty feet away from Kitty, who looked up and acted shocked.

"No. I don't even have to explain why." She said defiantly.

"Just come here, Kitty. A battlefield is no place for a woman." Johannes said, coming closer. Kitty saw Kurt on the roof behind Johannes, tail lashing angrily as he crawled along the thatch of the roof and jumped from house to house, to get closer. The straw rustled quietly as he moved, unnoticed by Johannes.

"So you're back to being sexist? This place has been my home for _six years_, Johannes. I'm not about to leave it, especially not with a swine like you." Kitty spat, moving backwards and tripping over the corpse of a soldier, shrieking in surprise. Johannes ran forward. "_Kurt!_" Kitty screamed as Johannes came within five feet of her.

Kurt's familiar, loud snarl rang from behind Johannes, and he turned, eyes widening with the shock of seeing all the angry demons on the roofs, surrounding him, waiting to tear him limb from limb with glee. His finger found the trigger on the gun and he sprayed rounds of bullets at the surviving demons. Few were hit as they punched through the straw thatch and dropped into the houses below, but a bullet did hit Kurt. Kitty pushed herself up and shouted herself hoarse at Johannes.

"STOP FIRING! DON'T SHOOT! LISTEN TO ME, YOU IGNORANT ASSHOLE!" Demons were emerging from the houses behind Kitty, and as Johannes turned to shoot them, stray rounds ripped through Kitty's left shoulder and just above her right hip. As soon as Johannes saw what he'd done, he threw down the gun and took two steps towards Kitty as she fell before 145 pounds of supremely pissed-off and injured half-demon landed on his back, shoving his face into the bloody mud on the ground, in between the bodies of a demon and a soldier.

"I swear to any god, goddess, and creature that might be listening, that I will kill you in the most painful and slow way possible. You're the dick who destroyed my town, my friends' lives, my relatives' lives, my life, and Kitty's life. I will personally make sure I destroy everything you hold dear in a manner equal with the way you have destroyed mine." Kurt growled, eyes dark and dangerous. Kitty got shivers up and down her spine, and she felt fear of Kurt creeping into her gut again. Johannes, pinned to the ground, wet his pants in fear.

"Kitty . . . help," he gasped, eyes displaying a primal horror that went so far beyond terror. Kitty hardened her heart and narrowed her eyes.

"I'd pay money to see you die, and enjoy it." She rasped, voice akin to a demon's. Kurt took that as a cue and grabbed Johannes's head in his hands.

"Douchebag." He spat, before smashing the man's head into the ground and knocking him out. Kitty let out a shuddering breath as her head fell against the ground, a sigh of relief from pain escaping her dry lips. Kurt's eyes widened and he crawled off of Johannes, reaching a tentative hand towards Kitty, his fingers touching her hip, but there was no flutter of eyelids or twitch of shoulders in acknowledgement. Kurt sprung forward and crouched above Kitty. "Kitty? Kitty . . ." he murmured, moving his hands to her unbroken shoulder and cheek. He looked up and addressed the demons around him. "Where's Risa? Iske?"

"I'll get them." A female demon with cuts all over her face and body volunteered, 'porting away. Kurt moved so that he could cradle Kitty's head and stroke her hair gently as he waited tensely for the medicine woman and his aunt to show up. He was so tense that when they did teleport into the scene, he jumped and jarred Kitty into a half-conscious state. She moaned and shivered and relapsed back into unconsciousness. Immediately, Risa descended upon the woman, shoving Kurt away and scooping her up, teleporting back to her hut, with Iske and Kurt right behind her.

Risa worked so quickly that her hands were almost a blur, using her tail as much as her hands to stitch and suture and cut. At one point, using her body as a screen to the pacing Kurt, she leaned over to Iske and whispered, "Get Kurt out of here, love, he won't much like what I have to do now."

"Mm." Iske hummed in response, turning to approach her nephew. "Kurt, come walk with me. Come on, no, just walk." Iske insisted when Kurt tried to protest. He twisted against Iske's insisting, gentle hands on his elbows, guiding him out the door, a tail barb on his chin, turning his head, tearing his worried eyes away from the sight of Kitty.

"I can't go, I have to be with her, I have to be there, she needs me," Kurt insisted, a little bleatingly.

"Look at yourself, man! You're crying like a chick for its mother! What are you? Who are you? Pull yourself together!" Iske said sharply, smacking Kurt across the face with her tail barb. Kurt's eyes narrowed and his lips twitched as if he were going to bare his fangs. "Better. Kitty doesn't need you right now, she's said to Johannes and you heard it, she doesn't like a man thinking she's a complacent doormat who _needs_ a man. She wouldn't appreciate it if she found out you think she needs you."

Kurt growled lowly, not in anger, but in assent. "I'm sorry, Iske."

"That's better." Iske said as she guided Kurt over to a group of demons who were gathering up the bodies of their fallen kin and enemies.

Back at the medicine hut, Risa heard the sounds of her lover and Kurt's talking fading as they walked farther away. She took a deep breath and steeled herself as she took the improvised scalpel to the gory wound that had shattered Kitty's left shoulder. All she had to do was sever the little bits of tissue, vein, ligament, and cartilage holding Kitty's left arm to her body. The shoulder was completely ruined, and the demons didn't have medical capabilities to save the arm, it had to come off and be cauterized. Risa began to cut.

XXX

Kurt picked up the body of a boy, with a bullet wound through his chest, closing his eyes with his tail barb and whispering the passing phrase as he caged his emotions, that were far too active. Concern and sadness for Kitty, anger at the men for killing his friends and family, bloodlust for Johannes. He was used to just anticipation of a fight or an event or a moment alone with Kitty . . . and there was another emotion he was completely unused to: love. Shaking his head like a wet dog, as if to shake the emotions out of his head, Kurt passed the boy's body to the next demon in the chain of those working to clear the streets and take care of the dead.

XXX

Hours later, Kitty awoke, and went to smooth her stray hairs out of her face and gingerly explore the alcohol-soaked linen packed into her gut's wound, but her left hand wouldn't respond. She turned her head and looked at her left arm. It wasn't there. Kitty screamed as loudly as she could. "KURT! RISA!" She started to hyperventilate and shiver and tears welled up in her eyes as she ghosted her fingertips over the stump of her left shoulder. Kitty could've sworn she could feel the palm of her left hand itching. Kurt arrived first, gripping the doorframe to skid to a stop in front of her, eyes concerned. He had bandages down his left forearm. Risa 'ported to stand in front of her, face composed and calm. Kitty's eyes were running and she was struggling to push herself upright with one arm and the stabbing pain in her abdomen from the bullet wound.

"What?" she sobbed as her right hand slipped and she fell down onto the table again, feeling pathetic. Kurt moved forward and perched on the edge of the table, hands soothing her, gently wiping the tears off her cheeks, shushing her. Kitty pushed him away, shaking her head and shrugging her right shoulder to wipe her cheek.

"Kitty, darling—Kurt, go away—Johannes shot you twice, on accident, and shattered your shoulder and ripped your intestines. I couldn't possibly have repaired your shoulder, so I had to take the arm off, I'm so sorry." Risa said gently, pushing Kurt off to the side to address Kitty, putting her hands on her chest, just below her collarbones, pressing Kitty back down and putting her right hand across her lap, calming her.

Kitty was shaking her head, murmuring, "No, no, no, _no_," Risa nodded her head, insisting, gently, the fate was inexorable, the arm was already gone. Kurt, who had been shunted down to around Kitty's knees, startled the woman when he put his hand on her knee. She shook off Risa's hands and cried, "No! Go away! Don't look at me!"

"Kitty, it's okay, I've seen worse before, you're fine," Kurt said reassuringly.

"I'm pathetic! Don't look at me!" Kitty repeated, starting to cough, waving her hand at Kurt, burying her face in Risa's side and now wrapping her arm around the she-demon.

"Kurt," Risa said, giving him a look that said, "go or else." Kurt gave a defeated sigh and got up, slowly walking out of the hut, tail lashing nervously, eyes still worried. "Don't worry, she'll be okay. Just let her be." Risa said softly, following up her Look with a gentler version. Kurt nodded once and left.

He hoped that Kitty really would be okay . . . he'd seen demons that, after losing a finger (which was a much bigger deal, considering demons only have six), never recovered their personality completely.

"Please, Kitty . . . I love you."

XXX

XXX

XXX

**So, how did you like the REAL chapter 9? Yay, action, yay, romance, yay angst! Reviews are requested, because this is going to be one of my last big hurrahs before the shackles of school are fastened around my wrists once more. More reviews mean I can post chapter 10 for this story!**


	10. Julia

**I've been inspired by the mysterious anonymous reviewer "j", and a lot of other things … consider this part of my celebration of my Varsity Debate victory and good grades my hectic sophomore year. Sad and graphic chapter, though there is some romance and angst.**

XXX

XXX

The demons crowded around the plot of land, with slightly unevenly spaced rectangles of newly dug dirt. Kurt and what remained of the council, originally a group of ten prominent demons, now reduced to three demons: Heiko, Silke, and Kurt, stood at the head of the congregation.

"Yesterday we lost a lot of our friends and family. We lost parts of our hearts, minds, and bodies. The human soldiers took a chunk of us with them when they died, and it hurts. We all feel it, and it hurts!" Kurt began passionately. "But we won't fall to pieces. We're going to mourn and then rebuild. Nothing will ever replace what was stolen, but we'll make things new, recover. Remember, but recover."

The demons bowed their heads, and Kitty, standing leaning on Risa, bowed her head as well as the words struck home. When they raised their heads again, they looked out over their cemetery, too full, with bodies of lead, minds slow like ice, and weeping hearts. Kitty put her arm around Risa and put her face on the she-demon's shoulder as Silke spoke.

"Seeing as our community numbers at around fifty of our original five hundred, we have to be very careful to not die." She smiled and elicited a few weak laughs, "Though it pains us to say this, we've arranged marriages in the community. We hope you won't hate us for this."

The demons started muttering and whispering nervously, angrily, worriedly. Risa looked over to Iske with sad eyes, wrapping her tail around her lover's waist and putting her free arm around Iske, who responded likewise, her tail barb resting on Kitty's hand.

Heiko, the last remaining council member, moved through the crowd, offering condolences and telling people who they were being married to, according to a list he was holding. As he reached Kitty, Risa, and Iske, he smiled, lips tight with bad news.

"I'm sorry, Kitty, for your loss." He said formally. "You're remaining single, seeing as there aren't any other human men in Daemonburg."

Kitty took a sharp breath and blinked hard, nodding once in acknowledgement. Heiko looked uncomfortable with the information he bore as he turned to Risa and Iske, still holding each other. "Risa . . . you're marrying Overi . . . and Iske, my lady, you're marrying me."

"Yes, sir." They said in unison as Heiko moved away. Kitty let go of Risa, to give her and Iske a moment alone together, but Risa pulled Kitty in to a hug.

"Thank you." Kitty said, held between Risa and Iske. Iske kissed the top of her head. Just then, Kurt came through the crowd to them and put his hand gently on Kitty's uninjured shoulder.

"Kitty? Are you okay now?" He asked. Kitty turned and took a step towards him, Risa keeping steadying hands on her sides so she didn't tip over, now that the weight of her left arm was gone.

"I'm better." Kitty said, nodding and taking a deep breath.

"If you're interested, I'm going to see Johannes now." Kurt said, the shy, awkward air between them reminiscent of their first days together, back at the lab. Kitty nodded.

"I'd like to go with you." Kitty replied, more steadily. She put her hand on Kurt's left elbow, and Risa let go. Kurt and Kitty took escort position, reversed, though, so Kitty could use her right arm.

As Kurt and Kitty walked off, Risa and Iske savored probably their last moments together. They held each other, tails entwined, foreheads and noses touching.

"Who's Kurt marrying?" Risa breathed.

"Julia," Iske responded in an equally quiet voice. Risa closed her eyes for a second.

"Poor Kitty."

"I know." Iske kissed Risa before they separated, holding hands for as long as they could while taking steps in the opposite directions, before their fingertips finally lost contact. As Iske found Heiko and greeted him, she wiped tears off her cheeks.

XXX

Kurt walked slowly, so that Kitty wouldn't lose her balance, but it seemed to be annoying her as she tried to walk faster, but found that she had to lean on Kurt heavily or she'd fall.

"Something wrong?" Kurt asked mildly.

"Don't get me started; there's something inherently wrong with losing an arm then not being able to marry the man I love." Kitty said, frowning, then realizing what she'd said. "Freudian slip," she whispered.

"Excuse me?" Kurt asked, surprised. He pulled Kitty to a stop and turned her to face him.

"A Freudian slip is when your subconscious says something you want the person you're talking to hear without your conscious realizing it until too late." Kitty addressed the road, scuffing her shoe through some of the dirt, which was still looking a little rusty from the massacre.

"While that's very interesting, Kitty, that's not what I was talking about. What did you say before that?" Kurt asked, using his tail to tilt Kitty's chin up so he could see her eyes. They had tears in them.

"I said that there's something wrong with losing an arm and not being able to . . . marry the man I love." Kitty choked out, suddenly pulling Kurt into a one-armed hug, crying into his shoulder. Kurt was surprised at first, then responded, rubbing Kitty's back soothingly, avoiding the bandaged wound on her side. He murmured soft, comforting, meaningless words to her, rocking gently from side to side until her crying quieted.

"Thank you." Kitty said quietly, pulling away from Kurt to see his face. "I seem to be doing that a lot lately, don't I?" she gave a slightly watery laugh. Kurt's face lit up in a bright smile.

"Still up to seeing Johannes?" He asked, keeping the protective concern out of his voice, as he knew it would only upset her more.

"Yeah. I want the—" Kitty swore colorfully, "—to know what he did to me." Kurt raised an eyebrow and continued to smile, repositioning Kitty by his side and walking on.

The two eventually reached a hut at the edge of Daemonburg, where a hut was set apart from the rest, and it actually had a door, with a deadbolt of wood built into it. Kitty steeled herself, aware that a scowl had crept onto her face, and also aware that an anticipatory look of bloodlust and dark glee had stolen over Kurt's previously neutral expression.

Kurt threw open the deadbolt and stepped inside, looking around quickly before leading Kitty in. Johannes was tied to the central support post of the hut, gagged and bound as the three other prisoners in other huts around the village were, as Kitty knew.

Johannes was also blindfolded, and he could hear Kurt and Kitty moving towards him, but didn't know who it was. "Let me see! I promise I won't do anything!" He cried pitifully.

"I'll take that blindfold off, but only so you can see what you've done to Kitty . . . and why you deserve to die as slowly as an oak grows." Kurt growled. "Kitty, can you stand alone, right here?"

"Yes, I'll manage." Kitty's reply was clipped. Kurt let go of her, and she swayed for a moment, before planting her feet. She crossed her arm across her body and glared at Johannes.

"What's going on? Kitty? Are you okay?" Johannes, confused, called.

"No thanks to you." Kitty spat venomously as Kurt pulled the blindfold off. Johannes took in the sight before him with wide eyes: Kitty, looking murderous and three feet taller from his low vantage point, standing with her feet rooted on the ground like a Viking warrior, hair tumbling down to her elbow, one arm across her midsection, the other arm cut off into a stump at the shoulder, covered in bandages, and bandages wrapped around her abdomen and hip.

"Wh-what did I d-do?" Johannes asked, afraid and in shock.

"You blasted my arm off my body, you jackass! And you ripped a nice, gory, big ol' hole through me, too!" Kitty shouted, rocking on the balls of her feet, as if the sadness and pain, channeled into anger inside her were boiling over.

"So you see what you did? See how you ruined the woman you love? See how you ruined her life? She can't walk on her own! She has one arm! _Because of you._" Kurt hissed into Johannes's ear. He was enjoying entirely too much the mental torture they were wreaking upon the quivering mass of flesh known as Johannes. Kitty would later admit that it had felt good, at first, seeing him upset as the realization that he'd ripped her life to shreds like her shoulder and that there was no love, but then when that feeling faded, she just felt nauseous and guilty.

"I didn't mean to," Johannes breathed.

"But you did. So what should I do to you? Go requisition one of your men's rifles, shoot you in the shoulder? Shoot you in the gut, too? And the arm, for good measure?" Kurt snarled, holding up his right arm, which had a large chunk of muscle out of the forearm. Johannes was shaking his head, begging and apologizing softly.

"Yes, that would be fun to see. Then after that, you can cut the arm off, and go find his friends and family, and shoot a few holes through their heads. Kill the children execution-style!" Kitty added in a loud, angry voice.

"I didn't know they killed children! I didn't know! Don't . . ." Johannes cried, jerking forward against his restraints.

"It doesn't matter that you didn't know or it was an accident! It happened, and there's no way you can reverse it! You're responsible! You've got over 450 demons' blood on your hands!" Kitty screamed, looking as if she was going to cry again. "And look! Now look what you've done to me! No, not my arm, you moron; I'm a wreck because of you! I hate you!"

Kitty marched forward, in a straying path, and brought her foot viciously down on Johannes's knee. He bellowed in pain as his kneecap broke, and Kitty felt satisfaction before she started to stumble backwards before hitting the wall. Anger flared in her eyes.

"Kurt, get me out of here before I rip him apart with my bare hands." Kitty snarled in a demon-esque manner, and Kurt didn't point out the fact that the saying that Kitty had just uttered no longer applied to her. He took her arm and led her back to his and Iske's hut.

"I'll be back in . . . however long it takes that asshole to pass out from pain." Kurt growled, 'porting back to the prisoners' hut. He pulled the knife out of his belt and approached Johannes slowly, predatorily. Johannes lost control of his faculties and ended up simultaneously wetting, soiling, and vomiting on himself. Kurt bared his fangs in disgust.

"Long before I'm finished, you'll be begging for death." He said in a low voice.

Even from the hut, Kitty heard Johannes's blood-curdling shrieks of agony, and thrashed to sit upright, grasping at the walls of the hut with her hand. Her stomach turned, and she knew that though it had felt nice to get a little revenge, she couldn't let Kurt torture the man, however bad he was.

She clawed herself upright and slid off her bed, stumbling sideways before falling onto Kurt's bed. Yelping in anger, she shoved herself upright and took big steps towards the door, keeping her hand on the wall all the while. Nobody noticed her as she hobbled, looking punch-drunk, down the road, eyes dark in determination, intent on reaching the source of the screaming before it was too late.

Panting by the time she reached the bolted door of the prisoners' hut, Kitty drew back the bolt and slammed the door open. "Kurt, you can't do this." She said, voice strong.

"Change of heart?" Kurt asked, looking up from the horrific wound he was inflicting, cut by cut, on Johannes's left shoulder, and Kitty knew she hadn't been fast enough, because Kurt was down to bone.

"It's not right. It doesn't feel like revenge any more, it feels like torture." Kitty said. She saw Johannes, whose eyes had been bright with tears and pain, pass out from relief. Though she tried, she couldn't keep an edge of disgust from creeping into her previously neutral expression.

"Life isn't pretty, Kitty, and this is revenge, despite what it sounds like." Kurt said, still expressionless.

"Only sick people think torture is revenge, Kurt, and I'm not one of them. If you are, I'm glad you're marrying another woman, because I don't know you." Kitty shook her head, clenching her hand against the doorframe to keep her fingers from shaking. Slowly she turned and started to march back up the street, leaving Kurt to chew on what she'd just said.

XXX

Kitty petitioned Heiko and Silke to let her move away from Kurt, shoving herself farther away from the half-demon that was the source of her agony. She avoided him around town, never went near the town council's barn, and vowed to become totally self-sufficient. Even so, the man had an annoying habit of appearing.

As she was walking up the side road that had become her main artery through Daemonburg, using a rough walking stick, she saw Kurt walk out onto the road ahead of her and bar her way. She narrowed her eyes and grimaced at him in a human approximation of a bared-teeth-warning, a habit she'd picked up from the demons. Kurt's features were schooled and betrayed no emotion; his eyes were flat yellow instead of their usual glimmering gold. Kitty stopped about sixty feet away from him and took a second to look at him before turning promptly around and walking back to her hut.

Half of her was screaming to just go ahead and run, while the other half shrieked at Kurt to _"follow me, godammit!"_. Her ears picked up the tell-tale sound of a demon teleporting, and when Kurt didn't appear in her line of sight again, she sighed with relief and despondency, pushing through the swinging door of her hut. It was dark as normal inside the small, round building, and as Kitty flopped down on her bed, a small, dark animal jumped off the bed and streaked to the window, where it perched cautiously, luminous eyes turned towards the one-armed woman. Kitty cocked her head at it (another demon trait) before discerning an undernourished cat from the dirty fur and huge eyes.

"C'mere, little kitty," Kitty held her hand out, wiggling her fingers, making kissing noises at it. The cat considered her for a moment before jumping away into the daylight, its small shadow flitting across the opposite wall. "Oh well," the woman muttered to herself, left alone now with only her melancholy, dangerous thoughts to herself.

In the days since the Massacre and the amputation, Kitty had stubbornly refused to give into the pain of her injuries and the deaths, and now the arranged marriages and her subsequent near-ostracism. Now, though, those walls holding out the taboo thoughts seemed to give just the littlest bit before unleashing a tsunami of fresh emotions.

Her lost arm burned like it was always on fire, and sometimes she could feel a cramp in her missing thumb that hurt like it used to when she wrote too much, like when she was pulling all-nighters at the Universität München, several lifetimes ago.

_By now_, she thought, _I should be married and maybe even with children . . . instead, I'm condemned to a life as a spinster in an underground community of half-human monsters, down one limb, one life, and one lover . . ._

The deaths of so many of her acquaintances and friends had shaken her to the core; like if over three quarters of her life had died with them. Kitty fully believed part of her had gone to the grave with them, and she would never be the same after witnessing the killing field . . . though it did bring her closer, in spirit, to the demons, knowing what they had grown up with, knowing that they were all survivors of the same disaster.

Rawest of all the wounds, though, was the blow of the arranged marriages. The demons had been parceled off into breeding pairs, viewed only as reproductive organs in the survival of the species; a species that should never have existed to begin with, only on Earth by a grace of hellish genetics. The marriages served to renew and confirm Kitty's feelings as an outsider, an observer, an outcast . . . like an embedded reporter never fits in with the community he studies, Kitty felt she would never fit in with this community she now depended on so completely, destined to observe.

While Kitty philosophized about her current lot in life, the cat had reappeared in her window, jumping down onto the bed and startling Kitty. It crouched cautiously at the foot of the bed at her sudden movement before gingerly placing a small, bedraggled kitten down. The little cat jumped out the window again, returning a few moments later with another kitten and setting it down next to the first, looking up at Kitty and mewling. At first, she didn't know what to do, then she burst into tears, again startling the cat.

"What? What do you want me to do? I can't do anything for you; I can't do anything for myself! Go away! Go away!" She sobbed at the cat, waving her hand at it to scare it. It crouched cautiously and looked at her kittens then to Kitty, but didn't move. "Go away . . ."

The cat stared wide-eyed at Kitty. "Fine! I'll go away, if that's what you want. I seem to only exist for making others happy for a few seconds!" Distraught, she pushed herself off the bed and left her hut, stabbing her walking stick angrily into the ground, wishing she could wipe the tears off her cheeks and keep moving at the same time. Moving, she felt safer, less vulnerable to demons that might be skulking around the road, waiting to pounce on her and ask her if she was okay, what was wrong. Kitty felt she couldn't deal with that, not now. She also couldn't deal with the responsibility the cat had heaped on her by means of the kittens, though in the back of her mind she knew she couldn't ignore it, like she couldn't ignore the town.

Finally, Kitty slowed her pace and leant heavily on her stick, peering down a side street into the town square. The square itself was paved roughly with cobblestones, not yet completely smoothed by traffic and weather, and the buildings around it were stone, brick, or had similar façades. The old, weathered green barn sat at the north end of the square, its huge, open double doors sitting on rusted hinges, the looming darkness of the interior pressing on Kitty, even from a distance. On the right side of the doors, there was a quite fancy bulletin board, but all the messages that had been tacked there were long gone, torn away, ruined by weather or blood. One notice sat intact in the center of the board, its lettering new and crisp. It beckoned to Kitty to investigate.

Cautiously listening for demons, Kitty crept down the side street, coming to the corner of the square and looking around as if she was walking into enemy territory, filled with snipers and land mines. She made her slow, quiet way over to the board, the letters becoming clearer with each step. It was a huge sheet of linen paper, each corner held by a shiny new nail. The words at the top were written elegantly, but everything else on the paper was utilitarian, reflecting the plain urgency of its message. It was a posting of all the arranged marriages and the wedding dates, which made Kitty narrow her eyes in search of a few familiar names. Kurt was being married in three days.

Anguished, she clenched her teeth and looked away, rubbing her face into her intact shoulder, willing herself not to cry. A soft noise startled her and she turned around, but realized it was only a pigeon departing from a rooftop.

_Well, there's nobody around, so what's the harm of looking around a little?_ Kitty asked herself, looking into the blinding darkness of the barn. It smelled like sweet hay, and the windows high on the walls sent dusty shafts of light through the splintered and rotted wood of the long-gone floor of the hayloft. Inside, Kitty's steps, punctuated by the _thump_ of her walking stick, seemed quieter and much more insignificant in this quiet, introspective, and peaceful place. It was a huge barn, and at the other end, some of the hay bales had been pulled away from the wall and set up into rows, with an aisle leading up to a wood platform.

_This must be the chapel._ Kitty sighed. She approached the wood platform and slowly knelt, placing her stick on the ground beside her. Bending at the waist, placing her hand palm-down on the warm wood, and resting her forehead on top of it, Kitty exhaled slowly and relaxed. Safe and warm, it seemed very possible that a divine force was present.

"Lord God, help me in this time of need," she began, calling upon her years of synagogue as a child. "I've got a lot of problems right now, and I just need somebody to talk to. I feel on my own, and I know that's because I'm alienating myself, but I really can't handle other people like this. I'm all cut up, in every possible way, and I need to heal, but I don't know how. I'm still trying to get over the shock of losing my arm. I know I should be over this, but I can't let go. A part of me is gone, and it's too wrong. Seeing all the dead people, especially the children makes me feel numb, dead, inside, and I don't know if I can get that part of me back. I really want to, but I don't know how. The marriages are freaking me out, and I just . . . I really want Kurt back," Kitty sniffled, "but I can't have him. I just need somebody."

She dissolved into tears, body shaking, her sobs soft in the barn. From the darkness above, a shape detached itself and scaled down the wall, silently making for Kitty's form. She didn't realize it was there until it passed through the beam of light falling on her, causing a momentary chill. Only then did she look up and shriek, the sound unholy loud in the previous peace of the place. Her sobs immediately turned into wet screams as she staggered away from the shape, only to be embraced by it, two arms holding her to its warm chest, one hand cradling her head.

"I'm so sorry, Kitty, how can you ever forgive me?" Kurt asked softly. Kitty was immediately torn between wanting to rebut Kurt for the pain he had caused her, but the other part wanted to be safe in this angel's embrace, as she'd asked. She struggled, though her actions tapered off until she sat limp in his arms. Kurt sat back against the wood of the platform, holding Kitty curled in his lap, her head tucked under his chin, arms and tail wrapped around her protectively.

They sat like that for a time while Kitty quieted gradually before whispering, "Because I love you."

Immediately, Kurt's tail was on her chin, holding her face so that he could get a good look at her. "I love you too, kitten."

Before she knew it, Kurt's lips were on hers, soft and gentle and protecting. Kitty immediately melted, wrapping her arm around his torso and leaning into him. The kiss deepened and grew more passionate, Kitty's hand moving to the back of Kurt's head, his tail rubbing her stomach, teasing the edges of the bandages.

"_Kurt!_" A furious soprano shriek shot through the barn like lightning. Kitty started and fell off of Kurt, smacking her head on the wood and twisting her knee in her startling. Kurt's hands moved to help her up, but the whip-like crack of teleportation stopped his actions. The next second, Kitty was looking up into the rage-filled face of a she-demon.

"What are you doing?.!" Her voice was shrill and angry, and completely directed at Kitty. She felt the blood rush to her face, and a breath escaped her lips, but no reply came.

"Julia, I can explain!" Kurt said urgently, putting a hand on the she-demon's elbow.

"No, I didn't ask you, I asked the girl," Julia snapped, eyes not leaving Kitty's. Jealousy was etched in every line of her angular face, in the creases around her large eyes, the contours of her flared nostrils and bared, aggressive fangs.

"I-I . . . I," Kitty stammered. Julia narrowed her eyes.

"Making out with my _fiancé_, that's what, wench." Julia hissed. Suddenly, Kitty found words.

"Just because you're marrying him because of a law doesn't mean you own him, lady. I love him, which is more than you can say." Kitty growled in the demon's face, pushing herself up and shoving Julia into Kurt.

"How dare you," she spat, eyes wide in shock, but aggression not gone.

"Stop it!" Kurt interjected, stepping between them and helping Kitty to her feet as Julia stood. Kitty pushed him away.

"I take it back. I can't forgive you, you _dog_." Kitty turned her fury on Kurt before mustering all her dignity to storm from the barn, anger holding her tears far back.

As she nearly ran back to her hut, her thoughts chased each other as angrily as Julia and herself fighting. _How could he? He started it, and he __**knew**__that Julia was there! He can't possibly love me if he did that to me. Womanizer! Player! Low-life! You know what, forget him. I'm so out of here, and I don't care if I die._

She slammed the door of hut open, annoyed to see the cat was still there. Any semblance of peace or normalcy that had happened pre-Julia had evaporated. Like a whirlwind, Kitty flew around her hut, throwing all her worldly possessions (of which there were few) into a drawstring sack, tossing a few strips of jerky at the cat before shoving her water flask in last and swinging the drawstrings across her chest, gathering her stick, and turning to face the cat, who looked scared and sad. That one piteous look shattered her brittle shell of anger.

"God, I don't know what to do! Do you?" Kitty sat on the bed, asking the cat. It immediately came towards her, tail raised and purrs rumbling, rubbing against her side, whiskery face tickling her ear. Stroking it carefully, Kitty felt that it was skin-and-bones, its fur was greasy, but it seemed genuinely pleased to be with her. Sighing, Kitty reached over and gathered the kittens into her hand. They were tiny, cold, and weighed hardly anything. Kurt's words came hurtling back to her. He had called her a kitten, and cared for her delicate self, just like these tiny wretches.

Folding her legs under her, Kitty put the kittens between her knees as she reached behind her to grab her woolen blanket. She wrapped the kittens up in it, and the mother crawled in after them and curled up around them, purring. Kitty cocked her head, thinking, before breaking a tiny piece of the meat off and holding it in front of the mother's nose. Her rough tongue darted out and snatched it up. Slowly, Kitty fed her more meat before pouring a little water into a dip in the blanket. The cat licked every drop of moisture off the fabric, so Kitty poured a little more, which the cat lapped up. When the cat's thirst was sated, Kitty folded the blanket over the feline family, placing them in the very top of the pack, making sure they could breathe before standing and leaving her hut, setting out for better or worse.


	11. Marriage

**Just a note before I begin: someone asked why I suddenly switched the demons' town's name from "Dämonburg" to "Daemonburg". It was just out of laziness—it means the same thing. In German, "ä" means the same as "ae", except it's easier to type "ae", so I did.**

**Oh, and a heads-up on this chapter . . . from here on out there might be some innuendo (well, there is in this chapter, but it's not bad), but it gets worse in later chapters as the characters' relationships mature. I'll always give y'all fair warning before I spring that on you, though.**

**XXX**

**XXX**

Creeping through town, Kitty made her way cautiously to the stables. Inside, she saw the six horses of Daemonburg, unharmed by the Massacre, standing in a huddle together around the hay. She singled out one couple, a black stallion and a white mare, and took two halters from the pegs by the door to catch them.

Minutes later, Kitty emerged with the horses following behind, and no demons in sight, oddly enough. She jumped and startled the horses as the drums at the barn started beating loudly, calling all the residents to the barn. Moving hurriedly now, Kitty took a long length of leather cord to use as reins, tying them to the stallion's halter. She used a large rock to clamber onto his back, gripping his warm, supple sides with her legs to stabilize herself.

"C'mon, Sofi," Kitty murmured, tying the mare's lead rope to her left knee. "Let's go, Cottle." She addressed the stallion. With a nudge of her heels, he started to walk, steered by Kitty.

XXX

The barn was buzzing with the babble of excited demons when Kurt and Julia walked in, hand in hand. Depositing Julia with a friend, Kurt made his way to the platform at the head of the congregation, standing with Silke and Heiko. Heiko announced the couples being married, and Kurt felt a sense of bored and despondent detachment as he watched the demons march up to the stage.

"Demons Carl and Helle, do you acknowledge and understand—" Silke started to speak the marriage vows, when Kurt cut her off.

"Listen!" He held his hands out for complete silence. All the demons heard it: a faint, hoarse shout, then a much, much clearer gunshot. Kurt leapt off the stage and galloped out of the barn, flying down the streets as fast as he could, heading towards where he knew the sound had come from. Five hundred feet down the street was Johannes's hut, where a requisitioned rifle lay discarded at the door. It was silent.

He jumped onto the roof of the nearest hut and stood for vantage, startled into stumbling by the sudden jump of several large animals. His stallion, Cottle, and Julia's mare, Sofi, were in full flight, piloted by a one-armed rider. They were moving at a blazing speed, and disappeared from Kurt's sight within two seconds of his spotting them, dashing chances of recovering the very valuable horses.

Narrowing his eyes and baring his fangs in anger and frustration, a rough scream tore up his throat, echoing all the way down the narrow strip of field, carrying its owner's sense of fury clearly.

Instantly, Julia appeared at Kurt's side. "What happened?" She asked.

"Kitty stole Cottle and Sofi . . . and escaped. Johannes is dead." Kurt ground out, his rage rendering him nearly incoherent. Julia snarled fiercely and swore colorfully.

"Look on the bright side. At least that wench is gone for good now, done polluting our community." Julia said harshly. Even though Kurt was seething, he disliked the jibe on Kitty. However, he didn't protest his fiancée's statement. He figured that if Kitty was gone, he should really start caring the most about Julia, seeing as they were going to spend the rest of their foreseeable lives together.

Kurt nodded, but couldn't help but bare his fangs, lips twitching, as he stalked to the edge of the roof and jumped down. He reached up and caught Julia around the waist, placing her gently on the ground. Julia straightened the hem of her dress and took Kurt's arm as they 'ported back to the barn.

Heiko and Silke gave Kurt questioning looks but did not say anything, merely resuming the ceremony as if nothing had happened. On the stage, Kurt arranged his features into a carefully schooled mask of indifference, hiding the alarming chaos of emotions roiling beneath the surface.

He was upset that Kitty had left, fled like a criminal, becoming a criminal in the process. It was a dramatic and disturbing exit, one meant to infuriate and defy. Obviously, taking Kurt and Julia's most prized possessions was defiance, killing Johannes was a statement. Of what, though, Kurt had no idea.

Now that Kitty was gone, though, Julia took center stage and commanded all of Kurt's attentions. He knew that he couldn't give her all that, though, because he still loved Kitty. Julia would not accept that. The she-demon was dangerously possessive and ambitious, the reasons she had survived the fighting ring so well, but those traits translated badly into civilized life, making her overbearing, contemptuous, and snobbish now that her status was being elevated by marrying Kurt.

As the ceremonies marched forward, Kurt recited his required lines with impassivity, and eight couples were married before noon. The meeting disbanded after that point, and Kurt itched to summon Logan, the odd little master of the guards, and track down Kitty, though there was a big celebration in the square that called for Kurt's presence.

Torches had been mounted and lit on the building fronts, and a large bonfire burned brightly and intensely, and the band was playing. A small choir had been assembled and accompanied the raucous and joyful music, the community blissfully unaware of the murder of Johannes and the "repossession" of two horses. The newlyweds were dancing, spinning, casting whimsical shadows swirling, distorted, across the building fronts. Kurt could feel none of their happiness.

Julia crept up behind the tall, scarred demon, snaking her hands around his waist and tail around his ankle. "What's the matter, Kurti?" She cooed in his ear, standing on tiptoes to rest her chin on his broad shoulder. Kurt uncrossed his arms, smoothing the fraying edge of his bandage, and turned towards Julia, wrapping his arms stiffly around her.

"Nothing, love." He answered, hearing how forced his tone sounded and knowing Julia wasn't convinced. She quirked a thin eyebrow at him, pale gold eyes twinkling as she looked up at him with adoration . . . or was it obsession?

Everything about the she-demon in Kurt's arms seemed delicate and fragile, the angles of her face, the pale color of her eyes and fur, the thinness of her limbs, the narrowness of her tail barb, the tininess of her two-toed feet, hidden in leather moccasins, and the slenderness of her six long fingers. She was the antithesis of Kitty, who was delicate in a different way, but not fragile. It was like comparing a china doll to a rag doll. Julia would snap if Kurt bent her too far, but Kitty would flip over backwards and pop right back up, smiling, rosy-cheeked, blue eyes sparkling, chocolate hair, all so wonderfully exotic in the demon community.

And as Julia played with him, Kurt knew that his pretty little rag doll was out in the woods, on her own, upset and torn up with no one to help her. The thought made his stomach lurch and he had to suppress a heavy sigh.

Suddenly, though, he had to actively respond when Julia leaned into him and pressed her lips to his. Even though he tried to act like he was interested, he couldn't muster the energy and pushed Julia away. She looked confused and lost, like a puppy, until a flash of anger overtook her features and suddenly transformed the china-like beauty into tight-lipped, thin anger and clear jealousy.

"I know you're thinking about her. You always do. You need to stop thinking about her." Julia said curtly, eyes narrowing as Kurt responded almost sluggishly.

"I can't help but think about her, Julia, you don't know her like I do; you don't have a history with her like I do. The fact that she's gone now just makes me worry more." Kurt said almost apologetically, closing his eyes and cringing slightly as he saw Julia's hand rise, prepared for the stinging slap placed soundly on his cheek.

When he dared to look again, Julia's anger was tainted by tears welling in her eyes. "Come back when you've thought about that." She demanded, marching off. Kurt was left standing here, slightly open-mouthed, arms hanging by his sides in confusion, wondering what he had done wrong. Was it wrong to care about other people? Was it wrong to say anything about caring for other people? Apparently Julia thought so.

Kurt tilted his head back and sent a silent prayer to any divine authority that his married life wouldn't be this confounding . . . and trying.

Weaving through the crowd to find Julia, Kurt only did so because he knew he had to. If they weren't engaged, then Kurt would've gone and got Logan and a horse and set out to track Kitty before rain washed her scent and any tracks away. He found Julia talking with another she-demon, and his fiancée was gesturing angrily, stomping her foot occasionally, and crossing her arms. Cautiously, he approached and touched her on the shoulder.

She yelped then immediately rounded on him. "What? What do you want?" She spat, glaring at him.

"I only wanted to see if you're alright," Kurt said hesitantly, not knowing if that would set her off again.

"Oh, I'm just fine," Julia said scathingly, her razor-edged voice dripping sarcasm. "Just leave me alone, will you!" With that, she stormed off again, leaving a hurt and even more confused Kurt in her wake. Helplessly, he looked to Julia's friend for aid.

"Well, don't just stand there, go after her, man!" The friend said expectantly, giving him a look.

"But she said she wants to be left alone," Kurt said, flailing in the face of this complex emotional problem.

"That's what she _said_, but what she _meant_ was that she wants you to come after her. You know, prove you're really devoted and romantic." The friend pointed out as if it was the most _obvious_ thing in the world. Kurt's face scrunched as he tried to figure why a woman would say something and mean the exact opposite thing without using any sarcasm.

At that moment, Kurt felt an overwhelming urge to just throw his hands up in defeat and just go dance, but he trudged forth with his fiancé-ly duties, rather unwillingly.

XXX

Kitty was chilly and hungry, but preoccupied with too many things to fish the jerky out of her pack and nibble on the cold, dried meat. Cottle, Kurt's midnight stallion, was willing and obedient to Kitty, patient with her fumbles and slips, just like Kurt was. Kitty had began to think of Cottle as Kurt, and often would just stand and wrap her arm around his neck, burying her face into his warm, satiny neck to stem the tears that would flow at the thought of Julia.

Speaking of the devil, Julia's white mare, Sofi, was the nastiest, bitchiest creature Kitty had ever met, apart from Julia herself. At the moment, Kitty was angry and frustrated at the mare because she wasn't hobbling correctly. Hobbling is the practice of tying a horse's legs so that it could only walk a few steps and not run away during the night; it was practiced by the demons because they couldn't erect fences to hold the horses in a pasture. Kitty picked it up when Kurt taught her all she knew about horses.

Sofi threw her head in the air, resisting Kitty. "Sofi—you!" Kitty shouted in frustration, smacking the mare as hard as she could, shaking her stinging hand angrily. Kitty turned her back, appearing to give up. Sofi cautiously lowered her head and immediately Kitty whirled around, grabbing the mare's long forelock and yanking her head down to Kitty's eye level.

"Listen, mare. I'm not going to tolerate your antics _any longer_. Get your head _down_ and let me hobble you, or God help you, I will . . . rip your tail out." Kitty bit out, tugging on the horse's hair. Suddenly, Sofi decided she wouldn't tolerate Kitty and reared up.

Kitty dove out of the way to avoid being hit by the flying hooves of the vindictive animal. Suddenly, a harsh bray and sharp squeals met her ears and she looked up from the dirt to see Cottle, who had been standing by and observing the struggle, going after the recalcitrant Sofi.

He lunged with white teeth bared, eyes rolled back and ears pinned. Sofi freaked out, throwing her head in fear as perfect half-moons of scarlet appeared on her knees and hocks, drawn by Cottle's teeth. Her legs gave way and she fell to the ground heavily, black dirt staining her white coat.

Cottle stood over her, glaring down on her as she froze in fear. Kitty watched in rapt fascination—the action was so _human_. A few moments later, Cottle lifted his head and turned towards Kitty, taking a gentle expression as he walked to her and pushed his soft muzzle into her neck. Kitty grabbed his neck as he raised his head, pulling her to her feet. She had no doubt in her mind that Cottle and Kurt were the same spirit.

Cottle wheeled around on Sofi as she raised her head from the leafy forest floor, and she immediately lowered it again. Kitty was able to easily tie a halter around her face and pull her upright and hobble her. Cottle, as usual, gave her no trouble.

The fiasco with the horses taken care of, Kitty now turned her attention to the cats in her pack. The mother had woken and was wriggling out of the drawstrings. Kitty grasped the cat gently around her middle and pulled her from the pack, taking the kittens out gingerly, digging around for the jerky and water canteen to feed the mother cat.

"You know, you need a name," Kitty said lightly as the cat licked her fingers after inhaling the jerky. "I'll call you Mutti, because you're the momma cat." Kitty used one finger to stroke the kittens' backs. "You're going to be Nebbi," she told the small, black kitten, "and you're going to be Trots," she said to the bigger, tabby kitten.

As if in response to their new names, the kittens stirred and opened their tiny pink mouths silently. Mutti immediately came to them and snuggled with them.

Satisfied all her animals were cared for, Kitty pulled her blanket from her pack and wrapped it around herself. Sleep was elusive and hard-earned, but when she fell into its hold, nightmares unwrapped themselves and flicked past her mind's eye, torturing her.

_Julia and Kurt stand at the altar, dressed in a white gown and a tuxedo, the human priest reciting holy vows. Two words echo down to Kitty, standing at the doors to the chapel._

"_Any objections?"_

_Kitty wants to shriek, to run to them and destroy the she-demon, but she is frozen, unable to protest, to object, to move. With whispered words, Kurt and Julia seal their combined fates with a deep, passionate, hot kiss._

_Now the images before Kitty are positively pornographic, but she still cannot escape, forced to watch, voyeuristically, the consummation of the very marriage she hates._

_Every time Kurt's lips grace Julia's skin, Kitty feels hot needles of envy and rage stab through her skin. Every time one of them moans or whines, Kitty wants to throttle Julia. Every twist and thrust of their bodies makes Kitty hope Julia will break her back. When they collapse into sleep, Kitty wants to steal the pillow and smother Julia's porcelain, cerulean face._

_Once again, Kitty is subjected to a round of graphic views inside a maternity ward where Julia is spread-eagled on a table, hugely pregnant, Kurt holding her hand as she receives injections and words of encouragement from the human doctors and nurses. Each gasp that passes Julia's dry lips, each groan of pain and concentration, each look of pride and love traded between the two demons chips away at Kitty._

_The newborn baby's shrieks tear at Kitty's ears; it is covered in blood and fluids, eyes screwed shut, fists and feet and stubby tail flailing. Kitty can't turn away, though she tries, as Julia brings it to her breast and coos lovingly at it, Kurt's eyes filled with tears of overjoyed pride._

_It shouldn't be her. _

_It should be me._

_I should be there!_

Kitty woke from her terrors and found herself in the exact position she fell asleep in, but her blanket soaked through with sweat, hair plastered to her forehead. She pushed herself upright and breathed heavily through her nose, telling herself it was only a dream. But somehow, she couldn't shake the feeling that Kurt loved Julia more than he loved her, and it pushed her over the verge.

"_It should be me!_"

Her raw scream echoed through the woods, startling the horses and cats. Tears still blurring her vision, Kitty began to pack up, replacing her blanket and cats, un-hobbling the horses and clambering onto Cottle's back, seeking the warmth and protection he brought.

As they rode, Kitty reprimanded Sofi harshly for every misstep and wrong movement, pinned ear and flicking tail. Though she knew it was wrong to take her anger out on the animal, Kitty couldn't help but equate Julia to Sofi, like she equated Kurt to Cottle. When she stopped at a large stream to let the animals drink and refill her canteen, it was only for Cottle's benefit. When she avoided rocky and muddy sections of land, it was only for Cottle's benefit. When she slowed up from the canter for a breather, it was only for Cottle's benefit.

XXX

The day after the first weddings dawned crisp and beautiful, as befitted an early fall day. Kurt was in a remarkably good mood, recovered from the drama of the night before. He had to corner Julia as she played hard-to-get, then coy, but she wouldn't listen to anything he said or did unless it was a kiss. Forcing the memories out of his head, Kurt rubbed his eyes and pulled on a shirt and proper pants, walking through the quiet streets to the building adjoining the barn, greeting everyone he saw cheerfully.

In the auxiliary building, which was most often used as a storage house and kitchen, Kurt found a decent breakfast of smoked turkey and horse milk, with some horse cheese as well. As he finished the cheese and downed the cup of milk, though, he was forcibly reminded of the two horses stolen by Kitty.

His stomach jumped at the thought and Kurt thought he was going to lose his breakfast for a moment, but he kept it down. Between Julia's ridiculous jealousy and his lingering feelings for Kitty, he was torn between an obligation and a love. He wasn't sure if Julia would still be mad at him, or if he would ever even see Kitty again. But if he did see Kitty again, would she still be bafflingly angry at him?

Sighing and running a hand through his hair (it needed a cut, Kurt thought absently), the demon left the auxiliary building and crossed the square to check the wedding dates. Julia's and his wedding was today, much to his panic. How had _that_ crept up on him? He wasn't ready at all; he still wanted to think it over!

And right on cue, Julia teleported into the square, spying Kurt and skipping over to him. She read the notice around him, eyes widening in excitement. "It's today! Did you know that?"

"No," Kurt said, nodding his head numbly. Julia bounced up and down, almost glowing.

"Wow, I completely forgot. Looks like you did too. Man, I've got to go get ready!" Julia squealed, pecking Kurt on the cheek before disappearing in a sulfur cloud as quickly as she had arrived. Kurt was left standing in a daze. Last night she was in a sulky funk, today she was hopping around like a . . . well, Kurt honestly didn't know what to compare his fiancée to. Whatever it was, though, would have to be a very fickle beast, indeed.

As he walked back to his hut, elation shattered like glass on rocks, he compared Julia to Kitty. Where Julia was fine and delicate, Kitty was rather on the wiry side, but more robust than the she-demon; beautiful in a different way. Julia's moods swung like the pendulum of a clock, tipping from anger to despondency to joy faster than Kurt could keep up. Kitty generally didn't move from emotion to emotion as quickly, but her feelings were intense and slow-burning—that woman could hold a grudge, as Kurt knew full well.

If he were to ever see Kitty again, doubtless she would still be mad at him, probably call him a dog again, but then she would warm up to him; he knew she would. She couldn't stay mad forever.

So for the first time ever in his life, Kurt, the 20-some-odd year-old battle-scarred demon leader, was experiencing teenage angst, on a life-tipping scale.

**XXX**

**XXX**

**XXX**

**Love? Hate? Please, I need to know if I should continue in this new fashion. I've got a great many things planned for this story, and I might insert a few chapters about those six years I time-jumped a few chapters ago. **

**Should Julia and Kurt have a baby together?**

**Should Kitty be found by humans?**

**Should there be another battle?**

**Does anyone know what Kitty's animals (Cottle, Sofi, and the cats) stand for?**

**Please review!**


	12. Showtime

**Much, much thanks to FrankandJoe3 for your AWESOMELICIOUS review—this chapter is dedicated to you, for getting me off my duff and writing this!**

**Okay, though, on to business. WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS A LEMON. It's rated M for a reason, so please be mature about it.**

Four days after departing Daemonburg, Kitty was getting tired of running. She didn't know if demons were pursuing her, or where she was for that matter. All she knew was that she was somewhere in south Germany, in the woods. However, thanks to Cottle's intelligence, he had prevented them from running in circles, so they were actually travelling a productive path. Kitty figured that she'd have to hit _something_ _eventually_ if she kept going. But seeing how her meager ration of jerky was dwindling, eventually wasn't an option.

As she walked along on Cottle, Kitty kept her eyes peeled for any sign of human activity—any bike paths, walking paths, footprints, tire tracks, smoke, noise; anything. So far, the forest was quiet and unyielding, which was highly unnerving for Kitty. After four days of hearing only her own voice, she was getting a little paranoid; but after four days of carefully schooling her thoughts away from anything pertaining to her favorite demon, her mental strength was flagging.

Finally she gave in to temptation, knowing full well she would only feel pain and guilt for thinking about him now. God, how she missed him: the way he talked in his mellow, sexy baritone; the way he looked around a room, as if he was planning a great prank and just couldn't keep the laughter out of his eyes; the adorable, awkward, experimental way he had played with Kitty, just trying to figure out this whole affection thing. He was like a poor little boy trying to relearn how to be a boy after forced to grow up far too fast and fight like a soldier, and Kitty took the ultimate patience with him. Every time he did something sweet, like holding a door open for her, retrieving something for her, or helping her after the Massacre, Kitty felt like her heart would burst because she loved him so much.

Then he had to go ruin it. He _had_ to torture Johannes. He _had_ to be an arrogant macho man and refuse to apologize. He _had_ to save face and treat Kitty like a pariah. More than anything, Kitty was angry, bitter, and disappointed in him. She was angry for his utterly stupid and blatantly cruel actions, but what upset her the most was the pitiful, desperate look on Johannes's face right before she shot him. Even more disturbing was the image that was permanently ingrained into her retinas—Johannes with tears pouring down his face, the barrel of the rifle jammed into his mouth, and the bloody, charred remains of what used to be Johannes's head. Kitty was angry at herself as well, for she hadn't thought herself capable of such profound cruelty: she had blown his head off without a second glance! Kitty felt sobs congeal in her chest and bubble up her throat, and soon tears were slicing tracks through the grime on her cheeks.

But she was so bitter, so cold, because it was ultimately _she_ who was responsible for the horrible events that she was so angry over. Kitty had rehabbed Kurt, she had formed him like clay, modeled him to her liking, but she hadn't been able to smooth out the razor-sharp edges, and it was her own carelessness that had shredded her hands. Just like when a trainer and a tiger meet and form their quivering, tenuous bond, the bond ultimately snaps because the trainer becomes complacent with their "pet". Kitty felt like she could spit, she was so disgusted with herself.

Ultimately, though, it was sheer disappointment and pure regret that made her body shake with gasps when she cried. Kurt could have been so much! He could've been a great man, but he had thrown it all away through his torture of Johannes and maltreatment of Kitty. All her hard work, she felt, was for naught. Kurt didn't care about her, really, because he hadn't respected all the time she had invested in him. He took her for granted and now she was gone.

_Too bad, so sad_, Kitty thought bitterly, _now I'm gone and only now do you start to miss me—I hope._

Suddenly, her nightmare was crashing over her like a midnight-black icy-cold breaker, pulling her back out into the terrible, terrifying sea of misery and doubt. She couldn't help but doubt herself. Perhaps Kurt didn't miss her; was he happy with Julia? Did he even care about Kitty anymore? Had Daemonburg forgiven and forgotten already? Kitty had been Kurt's lone advocate in his darkest days, when death had stared him in the face, a very real threat, and Kitty had been his savior. The thanks for that had always been tacit between them, but perhaps now Kurt was forgetting his humbleness and the debt he owed Kitty. The least he could do to pay it back she thought, was to come after her.

Like a child seeking her mother, Kitty sought the feeling of being whole again that Cottle offered her. She leaned down and wrapped her arm around the horse's neck, her tears dotting his dusty fur. Out of the blue, she felt a warm horse muzzle press against the back of her left knee, as if in consolation. Kitty sat up and turned slowly to see Sofi pressing her face into Kitty's leg. For a moment, she forgot the mare's meanness and reached her hand behind her back to stroke her broad white forehead. However, as Kitty's fingers neared Sofi's fur, she pinned her ears and made to bite Kitty's calf.

Her teeth would've found home, too, if not for quick action on Cottle's part. He whipped around, nearly unseating Kitty, and thrust his head in the way of Sofi's bite, and the white horse had to quickly check her action, backpedaling furiously to avoid the reprimand of the black horse.

Again, Kitty found herself marveling at Cottle's actions. They were just so human, to protect a loved one, and so Kurt-like that Kitty felt that bittersweet ache in her chest and renewed longing for Kurt.

XXX

Kurt gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, appealing to any deity for mercy for the second time in two days. He had to unclench his fists as he walked down the main street and force a benign smile onto his face. In a few hours, now, he would be married to Julia, and he was furiously thinking for any way out of it, any way to postpone it, any way to make it more palatable. As he saw it, he was being tied together with a shrill, neurotic, and bipolar shrew of a she-demon.

He slammed the door of his hut shut behind him, suppressing a groan as he saw that Julia had already moved into his hut, firmly erasing any trace of Iske, his last link to Key. Muted, old grief swelled briefly at the mention of his surrogate mother, but that was irrelevant to him now. Kurt almost _feared_ Julia now: she was taking over his life like an infectious virus, and he most certainly did not want that.

Mustering all his honor, courage, and willpower, he muttered to himself, "It's showtime."

He collected the nice outfit Julia had laid out for him, recognizing the style from what he used to see men at the fight ring wearing. They called it a suit and it _did_ look quite nice on male demons, but every demon forced to wear a suit for his marriage did so with memories of dread brooding over him. Dressed as adequately as possible, Kurt 'ported to the town square and looked around for a moment, pleased to see it was more active now that most of the village had woken up. With nods and smiles to his friends, Kurt entered the armory.

The armory was more an honorary title than anything: it was a hut that had been afforded real estate in the town square that housed a few sets of spurs that had somehow survived and a few daggers and short swords, the crudely made pride-and-joys of the town blacksmith. Selecting a nicely honed dagger, Kurt grabbed a lock of his shoulder-length hair and regarded it for a moment in the dusty light coming through the window. At his scalp, Kurt's hair was so dark, almost black, but faded to deep indigo; but the ends were so dead as to look light sky blue.

With a flash, Kurt drew the dagger across the lock and it fell to the ground. He recalled his first true haircut, while in captivity at the research lab.

"_Will you hold still, demon?" Kitty, standing behind Kurt, growled in frustration as he tried to escape again. Two men, employees of the lab, were holding Kurt down as Kitty tried to cut his hair. His hair was long past his shoulders, and it was evident he'd never had it cut before, as the ends were split and dead and faded to pale blue._

_With resolute snips, Kurt's hair fell to the floor around him until it was closely and neatly cropped to his head. Kitty stepped back and the men released Kurt. Instantly, he sprang from the chair he had been restrained in and landed across the room, running cautious and investigative hands over his head. He was startled by the strangeness of not having long, heavy hair, and didn't like it._

_Baring his teeth, Kurt started to prowl across the room towards Kitty, hissing in distaste of his new haircut. Kitty stood her ground as the much larger and stronger demon approached her aggressively, planting her fists on her hips and staring him down._

"_Now don't you dare bite me. You should be thanking me, you know. You looked like a heathen, Kurt." Kitty said firmly with the air of a first-grade teacher scolding a student. Kurt approached, still hissing. When he got to the chair and cautiously picked up a lock of hair, Kitty pointed the scissors at him. "See? You look much better without all that dead hair."_

_Kurt grabbed a lock of hair, some of the brittle ends, and held them up as if in an angry question, but he was really comparing the color to Kitty's eyes. It was at that moment he decided that he liked the Kitty person, and especially liked her pretty blue eyes._

Kurt picked up his hair cuttings in his arms, using his tail to pick up the last little bits, and threw them out behind the armory, remarking to himself how the faded color did look like Kitty's eyes. It was almost as if he was throwing Kitty out.

With vague amusement, he wondered how Kitty would think of his hack-job haircut. As the drums in front of the barn started to beat like a huge heart, Kurt allowed himself one last thought of Kitty before he entered life as a married man.

"God, Kitty, I love you so much." Kurt whispered to the sky above him mournfully.

The drummers beat at the huge drums frantically, echoing Kurt's hammering heart as he strode into the barn, feigning confidence. He stood by the door and waited for Julia to enter, looking for her china-fine features among the demons filing into the barn and seating themselves. Panic started to take hold in Kurt's chest as the stream of demons tapered off but still Julia did not appear. Nervously, Kurt ran his hands over his tail barb.

He was so intent on looking out the doors for his bride-to-be that he jumped about a foot when a loud, whip-like crack sounded behind him. Quickly, he turned and saw Julia standing in the center of the aisle dressed in a simple but very new and very white dress, tail swishing good-naturedly, looking coyly over her shoulder at her husband-to-be.

"Coming?" she asked in her clear soprano voice, and Kurt was immediately taken by her again. Forgetting her difficulties, he drifted towards her, eyes feasting on her lithe figure and satiny fur, dainty features and hands, reaching out to him. With a small but warm smile, Julia took Kurt's arm and allowed herself to be escorted up the aisle to the platform where Heiko and Silke stood. They kneeled in front of the platform as if they were praying together.

"Demons Kurt and Julia, do you understand and accept what you are about to undertake?" Silke asked formally.

"Yes," Kurt and Julia replied in unison.

"Do you agree to stay by each other in mind and body, through summer and winter, through storm and wind?" Heiko spoke.

"Yes," Kurt and Julia said again.

"Will you, Kurt, be faithful, trustworthy, and protective of this woman?" Silke recited.

"I will." Kurt said, eyes focused on his clasped hands, fighting to keep his cool appearance.

"Will you, Julia, be faithful, trustworthy, and protective of this man?" Heiko said.

"I will." Julia said, eyes flickering over Kurt's face. She knew that he would usually say this next part.

"Then by all the power held in myself, I pronounce you man and woman." Heiko said loudly, and the demons assembled clapped politely. Kurt and Julia stood, tails twining, hand in hand, and kissed chastely before exiting down the aisle.

Even though the ceremony was over, Kurt's heart was pounding even harder and he glanced subversively at his new wife. _Wife_. The word sounded heavy, stuffy, and formal in Kurt's head, and he hoped Julia wasn't aware of how nervous he was. They were going back to their hut to sleep in their marriage bed and consummate their marriage. Kurt couldn't help but give an involuntary quiver of nervousness. Unlike most demons in the town and unlike Julia, Kurt was a virgin, and was embarrassed and apprehensive to the extremes about what he was about to do.

When they got to their hut, Kurt opened the door for Julia and deliberated on the threshold for a few moments, whole body tense as if he wanted to flee as fast as he could or teleport. He may have been courageous to enter the fight ring time after time, but that was forced, and he honestly did not want to lose his virginity to Julia. However, he had too much honor to leave her there hanging—Kitty had taught him better.

He really had to whip himself to get across the threshold and close the door. Immediately, Julia slunk around behind him and lowered the deadbolt bar, then moved to draw the curtains on the windows and light candles. Kurt stood, dumbfounded and paralyzed, and watched his wife move about. Finally, she turned her back on Kurt and started to undo the few buttons at the back of her dress with her tail and hands.

In one smooth, sensuous motion, Julia slid the dress from her body and let it pool around her feet like freshly fallen snow, bright against the blue of her skin. She peered over her shoulder at Kurt, who felt a spark of life inside him now. Though he consciously didn't want to do it, his basic male instincts were telling him that what he was seeing was _really, really sexy_.

Kurt's tail lashed and he couldn't help but stare as Julia turned slowly towards him, looking up at him through her lashes in a way that made Kurt burn.

"Scared, big boy?" she whispered in his ear, pressing her body against him. He became aware of the fact that his pants felt too tight at the exact moment that he became aware of Julia kissing his neck and throat. Shivers went up and down Kurt's spine and he felt Julia's delicate, nimble hands undoing his suit.

Finally Kurt moved, shrugging his jacket and shirt off, taking in a sharp breath as Julia's hands wandered across the planes of his chest, abdomen, and hips. When she slipped her fingers inside his waistband, he found himself nodding.

In a few seconds, he was free of clothes and both demons simply stood and regarded each other in their full glory for a few moments. Kurt felt hot blood burning his cheeks and he avoided Julia's piercing pale gaze, but felt it rove his body with laserlike intensity.

Julia moved over to their bed and sat, folding her legs beneath her, tail flicking like a lioness watching her prey, head cocked, and breasts bared. Kurt licked his lips—an involuntary action that drew a coy smile on Julia's face. He moved over to the bed and looked down on Julia, unable to keep the carnal hunger from his eyes.

The she-demon's eyes were huge and innocent, the color of white gold. Her full, ultramarine lips were parted slightly and her neck was exposed as she looked up at him. His eyes trailed down her body, taking in every glorious, satin inch of her—and she was _all_ his; this brilliance, this goddess.

Kurt clambered onto the bed, kneeling over Julia, straddling her. She fell onto her back and met his gaze with her hair splayed out around her head like a dark halo.

"Go on, touch me . . . take me . . ." she breathed huskily. Somewhat incredulously, Kurt let his hands rove, encouraged by Julia's low, lusty moans and movements.

"Are you okay?" Kurt asked. His voice seemed too loud, too normal in the breathy, hot atmosphere.

"What are you waiting for? Take me," Julia commanded imperiously. In a dreamlike movement, Kurt placed his hands on her hips and drove himself into her. He cried out loud with the sensation, panting heavily. He rocked his hips from side to side and was nearly overcome with ecstasy, eyes closing.

Suddenly, in a fluid movement, Julia flipped him and took control, pinning Kurt by his shoulders and showing him just how much of a virgin he was. He nearly howled as he came, but Julia wasn't finished yet. She moved expertly, leaning down to kiss Kurt in oddly erogenous places: the tips of his ears, the harsh line of his jaw, his temples.

He came another time, better than the first, and felt Julia seize up around him, issuing a low moan, drawing out his orgasm. The couple separated and collapsed next to each other, trading a passionate kiss before Julia rolled over and allowed Kurt to spoon her. Within a haze of afterglow, Kurt fell into the deep, warm arms of sleep with his own arms wrapped protectively around his Julia.

XXX

As night fell and the temperature plummeted, Kitty unrolled her pack and laid out her blanket, going through the rituals of feeding the cats and falling asleep gazing at Cottle, who was standing unusually close to Sofi this night. The two horses stood in a positively affectionate pose, with heads lowered and muzzles touching, bodies pressed together, asleep. Kitty frowned at Sofi and rolled over, wiggling into a more comfortable position and waiting for a night of dreamless sleep to come and claim her.

Kitty's hoped-for dreamless sleep was not coming though. Instead, she was stolen by startlingly lucid and vivid dreams.

_Kitty sprawled out on her bed, half upside-down as she leaned back over the edge. The small space of her dorm room was filled with the sound of Nirvana's most popular song, "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Her long-time boyfriend, Christophe, had gotten her hooked on the band; though she only liked a few songs, she listened to them religiously. Christophe, sitting on the floor, leaned back against the bed and turned his head to look at Kitty._

"_Hey Kit-Kat, what would you say if I asked you to marry me?" Christophe asked. Kitty was a little startled by the question._

"_Why? You're not going to propose to me or anything, are you? I'm only a sophomore; my mom would kill me." Kitty said quickly, eyes wide. Christophe chuckled._

"_No, no, relax. I was just thinking. I love you, Kit-Kat, and I can see spending my life with you." Christophe said in a soft voice, full of feeling. Kitty swallowed nervously. Sure, she liked Christophe a lot, enough to lose her virginity to him, but not enough to __**marry**__ him! Abruptly, she sat up and turned to look fully at Christophe._

"_Don't go getting any ideas," Kitty said warningly, "if you do ask, I'll only say no."_

"_You don't like me?" Christophe sounded hurt, and immediately Kitty had to backpedal._

"_That's not what I mean! I mean I'm not ready to even think about getting married—" Kitty said hurriedly, but Christophe cut her off._

"_Because you don't like __**me**__ enough. I see how it is." Christophe's voice became cold and his eyes narrowed. He stood and stared down at Kitty. "I'll see you in class, Katherine."_

_With that, he left the room with a slam that blended in with the music. Kitty fell to the bed, tears lacing her cheeks and temples as they fell from her eyes, dissolving in Kurt Cobain's mournful screaming._

Kitty woke to a predawn forest, the last notes of Nirvana's song lingering in her ears, memories of tears welling in her eyes, echoes of Christophe's name on her lips. She let herself lie for a few moments, staring up at the canopy above her, letting the ghost of the dream pass.

Finally, she stood and started packing up hastily, swinging up onto Cottle's back within a matter of minutes. As they went off through the forest, Kitty wondered why her brain had dredged up that painful memory of the past, but her mind chased itself in circles for well over half an hour to no avail.

The sun was just starting to penetrate the leaves, slanting in at an angle that threw thick, bright gold rays of light into Kitty's eyes and stretched shadows like taffy. It was very pretty, if annoying.

Suddenly, though, Sofi started pulling hard on Kitty's leg, nearly dragging her off Cottle's back. Kitty gripped tightly and jerked on the white mare's lead rope, but Cottle had frozen, listening intently to something Kitty could not perceive. Sofi went still for a moment as well, and a sense of dread crept over Kitty, driving needles into her neck.

Sofi started trembling, eyes growing progressively wider as she listened, snapping out of her statuesque pose. She pushed frantically at Cottle, biting at his mane and ears, knocking her knees into him, trying to move him. Kitty was startled by her erratic behavior and tried to beat her away, but Sofi persisted.

With an unexpected sharp pain in her left knee, Kitty felt the sensation of falling through air before the world went berserk.

A gunshot shattered the peace of the forest and Cottle brayed in pain, rearing up. Sofi lurched forward, dragging Kitty through the leaves. Cottle fell, slamming heavily into the ground where Kitty had just laid. Men's voices erupted in victorious cheers, and they crashed through the undergrowth towards Kitty. Cottle wheezed and kicked his legs impulsively, and Sofi moved to his head, lipping his forelock gently.

The men, two of them, burst through the ferns and came to a dead stop.

"Whoops."

XXX

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**Reviews please! I worked really hard on this chapter and this story, and I will be mightily depressed if I only get two reviews like I did last chapter. Even so, I thank everyone who has reviewed over the course of this story for making me incredibly happy. :)**

**Iris**


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